WIUD LIFE IO^C SOUTHERN SEvfS 



WILD LIFE IN 
SOUTHERN SEAS 




Louis Becke 

Author of 
"Pacific Tales," &c. 




NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 

156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. 1898 

L 



[All rights reserved.] 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

ORCA GLADIATOR .... I 

GREEN DOTS OF THE EMPIRE '. THE ELLICE 

GROUP . . . . 14 

THE TIA KAU . . . . .20, 

THE AREOIS . . . . 41 

Australia's heritage ; the new Hebrides 

group . . . . «59 
jack in the atolls . . .68 
the cutting off of the " boyd " . -79 
my native servants . . .88 
gente hermosa : the island of "beau- 
TIFUL people" . . . .105 

DEEP-SEA FISHING IN POLYNESIA . , 112 

vii 



viii Contents. 

PAGE 

BIRGUS THE ROBBER I THE PALM CRAB OF 

THE PACIFIC ISLANDS . . .128 

ON AN AUSTRAL BEACH . . 1 38 

A NOBLE SEA GAME .... I47 

THE GIGANTIC ALBIGORE OF POLYNESIA THE 

TAKUO . . . . .158 

OLD SAMOAN DAYS . . . 1 72 

THE KING'S ARTILLERYMEN . . .212 

"LEVIATHAN'' .... 222 

AN ISLAND KING .... 248 

A SPURIOUS UTOPIA . . . • ^57 

LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN POLYNESIA . . 266 

NIUE : THE " SAVAGE ISLAND " OF CAPTAIN 

COOK ..... 279 

THE OLD AND THE NEW STYLE OF SOUTH 

SEA TRADER ... . . 302 

RAPA : THE FORGOTTEN . . . 32O 

HINO, THE APOSTATE I A TALE OF THE MID- 
PACIFIC . . . , . 331 
IN THE MORNING .... 362 



Orca Gladiator. 



WE — a little girl of six, and myself — were 
seated upon a high, flat-topped, grassy- 
headland of a lonely part of the northern coast 
of New South Wales, five miles from the old 
penal settlement of Port Macquarie. Three 
hundred feet below, the long Pacific rollers, 
unruffled by the faintest breath of air, swept 
in endless but surfless succession around a chain 
of black, isolated, and kelp-covered rocks that 
stood out from the shore at a distance of a 
cable-length or so. The tide was low, and 
some of the rocks raised their jagged, sun-dried 
summits perhaps six feet above the surface ; 
others scarce a foot, so that each gentle swell 
as it came wavering shoreward poured over 
their faces in a creamy lather of foam ; others 
again were fathoms below, and their thick 
garments of kelp and weed swayed to and fro 
unceasingly to the sweep of the ocean roll above 



2 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



them. And in and about the rocks, and hover- 
ing over the white gleam of sandy bottom that, 
like a great table of ivory, lay between them 
and the cliff-bound shore, swam droves of 
bright, pink-coloured schnapper, and great, 
lazily moving blue-fish. Half a mile away a 
swarm of white gulls floated motionless upon 
the blue expanse ; upon the time-worn fore- 
shore boulders beneath us stood lines and groups 
of black divers, with wings outspread in solemn 
silence, gazing seaward. 

We had climbed the headland to look for 
whales ; for it was the month of October, when 
the great schools of humpbacks and finbacks 
were travelling southward to colder seas from 
their breeding grounds among the Bampton 
Shoals, nine hundred miles away, north-east. 
For three weeks they had been passing south, 
sometimes far out from the land, sometimes 
within a mile of the shore — hundreds of 
thousands of pounds' worth of rich blubber, 
with never a whaleship nor whaleboat's crew 
within two thousand miles ; for the brave old 
days of Australian whaling enterprise died full 
thirty years ago. 

At last, a mile or so away, a jet of smoky 



Orca Gladiator. 



3 



spray, and then another and another ! Five 
humpbacks — two cows, two calves, and a bull 
— only a small "pod" — that is, a school. 
Nearer and nearer they came, their huge, black 
humps gleaming brightly in the dazzling sun- 
light as they rose to spout. A hundred yards 
in front, the old bull rolls lazily along, " sound- 
ing " but rarely, for the sea is full of squid, 
and he and his convoy, with drooping lower 
jaws, suck in the lovely morsels in countless 
swarms. 

Six weeks before, as they had rolled and 
spouted northwards to the great lagoons of the 
Bampton and Bellona Reefs, they had passed 
within, perhaps, a hundred yards of the head- 
land upon which we sat. Perhaps, too, a fierce 
" north-easter " blew, and the chain of rocks 
that was now so gently laved by the murmuring 
waves was smothered in the wild turmoil of a 
roaring surf, and the great bull, although his 
huge, corrugated belly itched sorely from the 
thick growth of inch-long barnacles that had 
so tormented him of late, spouted regretfully 
and headed seaward again — even he could not 
scratch his giant frame in such a surf as that. 
But to-day it was different ; and now he could 



4 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



enjoy that long-delayed pleasure of dragging 
his great body over the rough surfaces of the 
submerged rocks, and tearing those dreadfully 
irritating barnacles off his twenty-five feet of 
grey-white ridgy stomach. For, suddenly, he 
raised his vast head, and then " sounded," 
straight on end, and the child by my side 
gave a gasp of wondering terror as she saw 
his mighty tail rise a good ten feet in air 
and then slowly vanish beneath the sea. 

On went the cows and calves, apparently 
taking no heed of father's sudden dive shore- 
ward. He would soon be back, they knew, as 
soon as the poor fellow had rid himself of those 
tormenting barnacles ; and so with diminished 
speed they kept in southwards towards Camden 
Haven. But just as the great bull came burst- 
ing through the blue depths into the greeny 
hue of six fathoms of water, we saw between 
him and the " pod " two small jets, like spurts 
of steam, shoot up from the water between him 
and his convoy ; and in another second the 
cows and calves had sounded in deadliest terror, 
and were rushing seaward, two thousand feet 
below. For they knew that out there in the 
depths lay their only hope of safety from their 



Orca Gladiator. 



5 



dreaded and invincible enemies, the " killers " 
and " threshers " of the South Pacific — the 
murderous, savage cetacean pirates that lie in 
wait for the returning " pods " as they travel 
southwards to the colder seas of Tasmania. 
As the great humpback reached the chain of 
rocks, and had begun to scratch, his foes had 
advanced silently but swiftly towards him. 
Before them swam their equally fierce and 
dreaded ally, Alopias Vulpes, the " thresher," 
or fox-shark. But, before I tell of that noble 
fight of giants, which for nearly two hours we 
gazed at on that October morning from the 
lonely headland, let me say something about 
Alopias Vulpes and his fellow pirate, Orca 
Gladiator, the " killer." 

First of all, then, as to the " thresher." He 
is a shark, pure and simple, and takes his name 
from his enormous, scythe-like, bony tail, which 
forms two-thirds of his length. His mouth is 
but small, and whales have little to fear from 
that, but dread the terrible knife-like sweep and 
downward slash of his tail ; for each stroke cuts 
through the tough skin and sinks deep into the 
blubber. Such is the " thresher," and in every 



6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



drove of " killers " there is always one thresher, 
sometimes two. 

The " killer " is actually a whale, for he is 
warm-blooded and rises to the surface to spout, 
which he does in a manner that has often led to 
his being mistaken for a humpback, or finback 
whale. He is distinguishable only from the 
grampus by his mouth, which has teeth — and 
terrible teeth — in both jaws : the grampus has 
teeth in his lower jaw only. When he (the 
grampus) is a baby he has teeth in both jaws, 
but those of the upper jaw are shed and fall out 
when he is about half grown. The killer has 
teeth in both jaws, as many a poor humpback 
and finback has found out to his cost, for the 
fierce creature does justice to his name — Orca 
Gladiator. 

The killers have a business, and they never 
neglect it. It is the business of whale catching 
and killing. They are the bull-dog pirates of 
the deep sea, and on the coast of Australia their 
headquarters are at Twofold Bay. Sometimes, 
but not often, they have been known to attack 
the monarch of the ocean, the sperm whale. 
But they generally leave him alone. He is too 
big, too powerful, and his great eight-inch teeth 



Orca Gladiator. 



7 



and fierce spirit render him a dangerous 
customer to tackle. But with the right whale, 
the humpback, and the seventy-foot flying 
finback, the killers can work their cruel will. 
And now to the fight we saw. 

For about ten minutes or so the great hump- 
back dragged his monstrous fifty feet of flesh 
and blubber across the tops of the submerged 
rocks, raising sometimes his vast head and some- 
times his mighty flukes out of the water, as with 
all the weight of his giant body he rubbed, 
and scraped, and scratched his itching belly 
against the surface of the rocks. Suddenly, 
a long, slender, greyish object swept like 
lightning upon him, and the thresher buried 
his teeth in the loose skin of his " small " — that 
is, about fifteen or sixteen feet from his tail. 
And at the same moment, with savage puffs of 
spray shooting high from their blow-holes, the 
two killers darted at his head and seized him by 
the jaws. In ten seconds there was nought to 
be seen but a maddened whirl and seeth of 
foam, as the unfortunate victim sought to 
escape seaward. Well did he know that in 
such shallow water — there was but five or six 



8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



fathoms — he could not sound far below into 
ocean's depths, and, carrying his foes with him, 
compel them to rise for air. Fifteen, perhaps 
twenty minutes exhausts the air supply of a 
killer ; a whale can remain below the surface 
for sixty. But he made a bold attempt. 

Raising his enormous head high in air, 
and giving it a mighty shake, he freed himself 
from one of the killers, whose body, twenty feet 
in length, he hurled from him as if it were a 
minnow ; but the other, with his cruel teeth 
buried bull-dog fashion in his thick lips, hung 
on with savage tenacity. And down upon his 
" small " the thresher, with his teeth gripping 
the loose, tough, and wrinkled skin, upreared 
his lengthy form, and brought his awful scythe- 
like tail down upon the victim's back, with a 
smack that could be heard half a mile away. It 
cut, and then, as the whale rolled in his agony 
from the blow, a broad, white streak of blubber 
oozed through the severed skin. Before he 
could gather his strength for that seaward rush, 
which meant life, the thrown-off killer was 
back, and had seized him again by his starboard 
lip. Too late ! he could not sound and could 
not flee, and the poor, worried animal seemed 



Ore a Gladiator. 



9 



to know it, for suddenly he lay quiet, while the 
bulldogs shook him and the thresher dealt him 
steady but fearful blows upon his broad expanse 
of shining back. 

" Oh, the poor whale ! " said my little com- 
panion, as she shudderingly clutched my arm. 
" Look at that ! " 

The killer fastened to the left jaw of the 
helpless, floating monster, raising his square 
white and black head about a foot or two out 
of the water, gave it that quick jerk one sees a 
fox-terrier give to a rat, and brought away in 
his jaws a piece of lip about a yard long — a 
thick strip of bloody white and red. And, as 
a terrier throws a rat backward and upward, so 
did the killer throw away the gory mass ; it fell 
with a heavy splash upon the water some 
fathoms away. Then with a mighty leap the 
wretched whale sprang clear out of the water, 
standing for a moment or two straight up and 
down, and as he swung his body round in 
falling, we saw the blood pouring from his jaws 
in a stream. He fell upon his back with a 
terrific splash of foam, and for a few seconds 
was out of sight ; again he raised his head — the 
killers were both fastened to his lips again, 



IO 



Wila Life in Southern Seas. 



tearing off the blubbery flesh in monstrous 
strips. Once, as he wallowed in his agony, he 
opened his vasty jaw, and ere he could close his 
mouth one of his foes thrust in his bull-dog 
head and sought to tear away a piece of his 
great tongue. And then came such a crashing 
and splashing and bewildering leaping of 
foam, and his tail upreared itself and swept 
round and round in all directions, and then 
struck the water a blow that sounded like a 
thunderclap. 

" Look," said the child again, " there are 
more of those cruel killers coming ; see, there 
they are, just below us ! Oh ! how I hate 
them ! " 

Fifty feet away from the persecuted hump- 
back, and sailing round and round in the green 
water beyond the rocks, were five sharks. They 
had smelt the blood of the battle, and were 
waiting till they could join in, and, while the 
killers forced their heads into the humpback's 
mouth and tore out his toothsome tongue, feed 
upon the quivering mass of blubber and rend 
him in pieces from his head down to his 
" small." 

The unfortunate animal was now becoming 



Orca Gladiator. 



rapidly exhausted, and although he still struck 
the water resounding blows with his tail, he 
was convulsed with pain and terror, and swam 
slowly round and round in a circle, spouting 
feebly, and rolling from side to side in a vain 
effort to shake off the killers, and find his way 
to the open sea. Then, as if wearied with their 
attempts to get at his tongue, the two destroyers 
suddenly let go their hold and swam away some 
twenty yards or so ; and the thresher, too, 
although he still lay alongside, ceased his 
fearful blows and let his long, narrow, and 
tapering body lie motionless upon the water, 
and the five grey sharks drew nearer and 
nearer. But the killers had not left him, for 
after spouting once or twice, they slewed round 
and came at the prey with a savage rush, and, 
leaping bodily out of the water, flung them- 
selves upon his back time and time again with 
the most cruel and extraordinary pertinacity. 
And so, at last, there he lay, his monstrous 
head and thirty feet of his back raised high 
out of the water, and the white seethe of 
foam in which his colossal frame writhed and 
shuddered in deadly torment was tinged 
deeply with a bloodied red. Better far would 



12 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



have been for him the swift, death-dealing 
stroke of the whaler's lance, or the dreadful 
" squish " of the bursting bomb as it entered 
his vitals, and put an end to him at 
once, than endure such tortures as now were 
his. But, presently, gathering his strength for 
one final effort, one last spout slowly curled 
out, he lowered his head, raised his tail, and 
dashed headlong seaward. And like demons 
from the pit the two killers followed him 
down. They knew that for a mile out the 
water was too shallow for him to get away 
from them. Behind, the five sharks swept in 
swift pursuit ; ahead of all Alopias Vulpes cleft 
the water with sharp vicious " t weeps " of his 
long tail. 

Five, perhaps six, minutes passed, and then, 
with a roaring burst of foam, and spouting 
quickly, he raised his immense form half out 
of the water and, supporting himself upon his 
tail, spun round and round. Twice his cave- 
like mouth opened and shut, and as he beat 
the sea into froth and spume around, a strange, 
awe-inspiring sound accompanied his last spout ; 
for the sharks were at him below, tearing and 
riving out mouthfuls of blubber, and the killers 



Orca Gladiator. 



13 



had dragged out his tongue. One last shudder- 
ing gasp, and the now unconscious creature 
sank backward, and describing a circle in his 
final " flurry," rolled over, " fin up," and gave 
up his greasy ghost. 



Green Dots of the Empire : The 
Ellice Group. 

DOTS only. And if the ship that carries 
you is running past them in the night, 
with the steady force of the south-east trades 
filling her canvas, you would never know that 
land lay within a few miles, save for the flashing 
of lights along the low sandy beaches or, may- 
hap, the dulled roar of the beating surf thrashing 
the reef on the windward side of the island. 
This, of course, implies that when ships pass in 
the night they do so on the lee-side. It is not 
a safe thing for even a daring trading schooner 
to have a long, long stretch of low-lying reef- 
encircled islets for a lee ; for sometimes Matagi 
toe lau (as the brown-skinned people call the 
trade wind) is apt, a few hours before dawn, 
to lull itself to slumber for a space, till the sun, 
bursting from the ocean, wakes it to life again. 

14 



Green Dots of the Empire, 



15 



And should the schooner have drifted down 
upon the land with the stealthy westerly current 
there is no such thing as trusting even to good 
ground tackle on the weather side of an Ellice 
Group atoll. Did the ocean slumber too, and 
the black ledges of the windward reef were 
laved but by the gentlest movement of the 
water, there would be no anchorage, unless the 
ship were loaded with a cable long enough ; 
and ere the sun has dried the dews of the night 
on the coconuts the merry trade wind pipes 
up again, the smooth surface of the ocean swells 
and undulates, the rollers sweep in from the 
eastward and charge wildly against the black 
wall of coral rock, smothering it in a maddened 
tumble of froth and foam, the while the smoky 
sea-spume is carried on high to fall in drenching 
showers upon the first line of coco-palms and 
puka scrub growing down close to the iron- 
bound shore. And of the eight islands of the 
Ellice Group all are alike in this respect — a wild 
tumultuous surf for ever beats upon the weather 
shore even under the influence of the ordinary 
trade wind ; and, on the lee, there lies a sea as 
placid and motionless as a mountain lake. 



i6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Four years ago the Gilbert and Kingsmill 
Groups (known collectively as the Line Islands) 
and the Ellice Group were annexed by Great 
Britain ; and although people in Australia hear 
and read a good deal about the Gilberts and 
Kingsmills by reason of their being the location 
of the newly-appointed British Resident and 
Deputy-Commissioner for the Western Pacific, 
seldom is anything heard about or told of the 
almost equally important Ellice Group. The 
reason for this is not far to seek. The Line 
Islanders — fierce, turbulent, and war-loving 
people, island hating island with the same 
savage animosity that characterised the High- 
land clans of the thirteenth century — are a 
difficult race to govern, and although the 
London Missionary Society has done much 
good, the Resident has his work cut out to 
prevent the people of his sixteen islands 
shooting and cutting each other's throats as 
they did in the good old days. For when 
Captain Davis, of Her Majesty's ship Royalist, 
hoisted the English flag, he sternly intimated 
that there was to be no more fighting, and 
later on the High Commissioner, Sir John 
Thurston, in the Rapid, made them disarm ; 



Green Dots of the Empire. 17 

but scarce had the smoke from the steamer's 
funnel vanished from the horizon than the 
old leaven worked, and rifles, carefully hidden 
away from the naval men, were brought forth 
from their concealment and put to use. And 
so every few months or so the Australian news- 
papers notify that " there has been fresh trouble 
in the Gilbert Group." However, all this will 
be a thing of the past in another year or two, 
although it is safe to predict that it will be 
long ere the Gilbert Islander — man or woman 
— gives up the manufacture and use of sharks' 
teeth swords and daggers. And as these 
weapons are not necessarily fatal, and are time- 
honoured arguments for settling public and 
family differences, perhaps it will be as well 
for the High Commissioner to let them 
possess the means of letting out in a moderate 
degree some of their quick, hot blood. 

But the people of the Ellice Group show the 
other side of the picture, and their calm, placid 
existence, undisturbed except by a family quarrel, 
explains why — saving the visit of a surveying 
ship — no men-of-war steam up to the anchor- 
ages outside the reefs, or into the lagoons, and 
hold courts of inquiry into native outbreaks or 

3 



1 8 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

private shootings. The Ellice Islanders never 
fight, for they have a horror of bloodshed, and 
except for a few fowling-pieces used for shooting 
pigeons, there are no firearms in the group — 
save those in the possession of the white 
traders. 

Six hundred miles from Samoa, sailing north- 
westerly, the first of the group, Sophia Island, is 
sighted. It is the south-easterly outlier of the 
Ellices, and is the only one of sufficient height 
to be seen from the vessel's deck at a distance of 
twenty miles. Until a few years ago it was un- 
inhabited, although the people of the next island, 
Nukulaelae, say that " in the old, old time many 
people lived there." It is about three and a half 
miles in circumference, has but few coconuts 
growing upon it, and would have remained 
untenanted in its loneliness to this day but for 
the discovery of a fairly valuable deposit of 
guano. Then it was taken possession of by 
an enterprising American store-keeper in Samoa 
named Moors, who landed native labourers and 
worked, and is still working, the deposit. The 
old native name of this spot is Ulakita — a name, 
by the way, that is almost unknown even to the 



Green Dots of the Empire. 



19 



local traders in the Ellice Group, and the present 
generation of natives. 

Eighty or ninety miles away is Nukulaelae, a 
cluster of thirteen low-lying islets, forming a 
perfect atoll, and enclosing with a passageless 
and continuous reef a lagoon five miles in length 
by three in width. This narrow belt of land — 
in no case is any one of the islets over a mile in 
width — is densely covered with coconuts, and, 
seen from the ship, presents an enchanting ap- 
pearance of the brightest green, accentuated on 
the westerly or lee shore by beaches of the most 
dazzling white. Thirty years ago Nukulaelae 
had a population of four hundred natives. 

Then one day, in 1866, there came along two 
strange vessels, a barque and a brig, and hove-to 
close to the reef, and in a few hours nearly two 
hundred of the unfortunate, unsuspecting, and 
amiable natives were seized and taken on board 
by the Peruvian cut-throats and kidnappers that 
had swept down upon them, and, with other 
companions in misery, torn from their island 
homes, taken away to slavery in the guano pits 
of the Chincha Islands, on the coast of South 
America. Of the Nukulaelae people none but 
two ever returned — they all perished miserably 



20 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



under their cruel taskmasters on the gloomy 
Chinchas. In 1873 ft was tne writer's lot to 
meet, in the Caroline Islands, with one of the 
two survivors of this dreadful outrage. By 
some means he had escaped in an English guano 
ship to Liverpool, and then, after years of 
wandering in American whalers among the 
islands of the Pacific, he settled down among 
the natives of Las Matelotas, in the Carolines, 
thousands of miles away from his birthplace ; 
and although sorely tempted to accept the offer 
made to him by our captain of a passage to 
Nukulaelae, the Matelotas people refused to let 
him go, as he had married a girl of the island 
and had a family. {Apropos of these Peruvian 
slavers, it may be mentioned that a few months 
after their visit to Nukulaelae, joined by another 
barque, they made a similar descent upon the 
people of Rapa-nui — the mysterious Easter 
Island — and secured three hundred and ten 
victims.) At present the population of Nuku- 
laelae is about one hundred and fifty, all of 
whom are Christians. Like all the other islands 
of this group, the population is showing a slow 
but certain increase. 

Within a few hours' sail lies Funafuti, an 



Green Dots of the ILmpire. 



21 



extensive chain of some thirty-four or thirty- 
five islands similar in appearance to the islets of 
Nukulaelae, but enclosing a noble lagoon, en- 
trance to which is given by good passages both 
on the south-west and north-west sides. The 
Russian navigator Kotzebue sailed his frigate 
through Funafuti Lagoon from one end to the 
other with a strong breeze blowing, and found, 
what trading vessels to-day know well, that un- 
less a vessel is making something like eight knots 
it is almost impossible to stem the fierce current 
that sweeps through the passages at half-tide. 
But once well within the lagoon, and away from 
the trend of the passage current, there is room 
for half a dozen or more battleships in which 
to manceuvre. About six miles from the south- 
west entrance the ship may drop anchor off the 
main island of the chain ; and here the native 
settlement is situated. Fifty years ago nearly 
every island in the lagoon supported a popula- 
tion ; to-day there are but four or five hundred 
natives all told, all of whom live on the island 
from which the whole group takes its general 
name, Funafuti. 

The natives are a hospitable, good-tempered, 
and intelligent lot, and express themselves as 



22 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



being delighted to be included as British 
subjects. And there can be but little doubt 
that in a few years, once assured of the good 
intentions of the English authorities to them, 
they will agree to lease out to traders and copra- 
buyers the long stretch of dense but narrow sea- 
girt coconut forests that form the southern 
boundary of the lagoon. At present, and, in- 
deed, for the past forty years, some millions of 
coconut palms are there allowed to fruiten and 
literally cover the ground with coconuts from 
year to year without the natives gathering more 
than will provide them with their few wants in 
the way of clothing, tobacco, etc., which they 
purchase from the one or two resident traders. 
Time after time have the people been approached 
by white agents of trading firms — notably in 
years past by Godeffroy's of Hamburg — on the 
subject of leasing one particularly noble island, 
named Funafala, for the purpose of making the 
coconuts into copra. Liberal terms — and for a 
South Sea trading firm to offer liberal terms to 
natives shows the value of the concessions 
sought — were offered, but the Funafutans would 
have none of the white men on Funafala. A 
solitary trader or so they would tolerate in the 



Green Dots of the Empire. 



23 



only village, but no body of strange, dissolute 
foreigners would they have to live among them, 
accompanied by wild people from the Gilbert 
Islands, who fought with sharks'-teeth swords 
among themselves, and got madly drunk on 
toddy every few days. And so the trading 
firms retired discomfited, and the coconuts 
rotted away quietly in millions, and the rotting 
thereof troubled the careless owners not a whit. 
Time was when there were three thousand people 
to eat them, and, save for a cask of coconut oil 
sold now and then to some whaleship, white 
men visited them but at long intervals. But 
things are different now, and even these tiny 
spots that dot the broad bosom of the blue 
Pacific are sought out to appease the earth- 
hunger of the men of the civilised world. Yet 
not, be it said, altogether for their coconuts' 
money value, but because of the new Pacific 
cable that is soon to be ; for among these 
equatorial isles it is to be laid, thousands of 
fathoms deep, and no Power but England must 
possess a foot of soil in the mid-Pacific that 
would serve an enemy as a lair whence to issue 
and seize upon any of the islands that break the 
cable's length 



24 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Take Funafuti and its people as a fair type 
of the other islands of the group, save Nui — of 
which more anon. Sixty or seventy years ago, 
so the American whaleship captains of those 
days said, there were three thousand people in 
the thirty and odd islets. Then, for the next 
thirty years, unknown and terrible diseases, 
introduced by the white men, ravaged not 
Funafuti alone, but the whole group, and 
where there were once thousands, only hun- 
dreds could be counted ; and until about i860 
it looked as if the total extinction of the whole 
race was but a matter of another decade. But, 
fortunately, such was not the case. In 1870 
the writer counted 160 people; in 1882 they 
had increased to nearly 200 ; and now, through 
better means of intercourse with the people of 
the other islands of the group, which has 
brought about a consequent and rapid inter- 
marriage, the people of Funafuti number over 
500, and show a gradual but steady increase. 

Oaitupu (literally "the fountain of water") 
is, although nearly the smallest, the most thickly 
populated of all the Ellices. It has no lagoon 
accessible from the sea, and even landing is not 
always easy. Here, although the soil is better 



Green Dots of the Empire. 



25 



than that of the other islands, and the natives 
have taro, bananas, and pumpkins to vary the 
monotonous diet of coconut and fish obtaining 
elsewhere in the Ellices, they are very subject to 
that species of eczema known as tinea desqua- 
mans (locally it is called "lafa"). While not 
incapacitating them from labour, or affecting their 
stamina or physique, it gives the subject a most 
unpleasant and disgusting appearance. It is, 
however, often curable by a residence in a 
colder climate, such as New Zealand. 

Nui, the island alluded to as possessing 
distinct and peculiar racial characteristics from 
the others, has a population of about six hundred. 
Unlike their neighbours, both to the north and 
south, whose language, customs, and traditions 
have a purely Samoan basis, the people of Nui 
are plainly the descendants of some wandering 
or drifted voyagers from the Gilbert Group, the 
inhabitants of which they resemble in language, 
customs, appearance, and demeanour. From 
what particular island the original people of 
Nui came is a mystery. There are no really 
reliable traditions of the present race that can 
throw any light on the matter. So far as they 
know they were always " Tafitos " — namely, 



26 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



people from the Gilberts ; but how they came 
to be on Nui they cannot tell. To show the 
sharp line of racial distinction between the 
natives of Nui and those of the surrounding 
islands, it may be mentioned that the transla- 
tions of the Old and New Testaments, 
published by the Boston Board of Missions 
for the use of the people of the Gilbert 
Islands, are used by the natives of Nui, while 
in every other island of the Ellice Group the 
Samoan version is alone understood and read. 
And although they can communicate with the 
inhabitants of the rest of the group in a peculiar, 
bastard patois, and of late years have inter- 
married with them, they always will be Gilbert 
Islanders, and preserve their vernacular and 
other racial characteristics. 

Nanomaga, the Hudson Island of Commodore 
Wilkes, is the smallest of the group. It is 
barely a mile and a half long, and not one in 
width, yet supports a population of six hundred 
people. The writer, who in 1870 spent a year 
on the island, can bear testimony to the kindly 
nature and honesty of its people. During all 
the time he lived there as agent for Messrs. 
Tom De Wolf and Co., of Liverpool, he never 



Green Dots of the 'Empire. 



27 



had as much as a scrap of tobacco stolen from 
him, although his trade goods were piled up 
indiscriminately on the floor of his house, which 
had neither doors, locks, nor a bolt of any 
kind. In this, however, the Nanomagans are 
peculiar — the other islanders are not so 
particular. 

The last of the group is Nanomea, a fine 
island, or rather two islands connected by a 
reef dry at very low tides. The people of 
Nanomea have long been known in the Pacific 
for their great size and muscular development. 
Indeed, the Rev. J. S. Whitmee, of the L.M.S., 
considers them a race of giants, and believes 
" that nine out of ten would measure six feet or 
more high, and their breadth is proportionate 
to their height." This, however, since their 
adoption of clothing is not so noticeable. How- 
ever, they certainly are a fine race, and almost 
free from tinea desquamans. There were, last 
year, 830 people on the two islands, Nanomea 
and Lakena. 

The group suffers but seldom from droughts 
or hurricanes, although the terrible drought 
experienced in the near-to Gilbert Group in 
1892 also affected the Ellices, and during 



28 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



1893-4 Nanomea and Nanomaga presented a 
parched-up appearance. A heavy blow in 1890 
also did terrible havoc among the coconuts, 
which thus had not the strength to bear up 
against the drought. 

The whole group of the nine islands or sub- 
groups lies between lat. 5.35 deg. and 11.20 
deg. S., and between 171 and 176 deg. W. 
longitude. 



The Tia Kau. 



F^OUR miles north-west from Nanomaga, 
a tiny isle of the lately annexed Ellice 
Group in the South Pacific, lies a great " patch " 
of submerged coral, called Tia Kau — the best 
fishing ground in all the wide South Sea, except, 
perhaps, the atolls of Arrecifos and Christmas 
Island, in the North Pacific. Thirty years ago, 
when the smoke and glare from many a whaler's 
try-pots lit up the darkness of the ocean night 
from the Kermadecs to the far Pelews, the Tia 
Kau was known to many a sailor and wandering 
trader. But now, since the whaling industry 
died, and the trading vessels are few and far 
between, the place is scarcely even known by 
name. 

A hot, steamy mist lies low upon the glassy 

surface of the sleeping sea encompassing Nano- 

29 



3° 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



maga, and the lazily swelling rollers as they 
rise to the lip of the reef have scarce strength 
enough to wash over its flat, weedy ledges 
into the lagoon beyond. For since early morn 
the wind had died away ; and the brown- 
skinned people of the little reef-girt island, 
when they rose from their slumbers and looked 
out upon the dew-soaked trees, and heard the 
moan of the distant breakers away on Tia Kau, 
said to one another that the day would be calm 
and hot till the sun was high and the wind came. 
And, as your true South Sea Islander dreads the 
blistering rays of the torrid sun as much as he 
does the stinging cold, each man lay down again 
upon his mat and smoked his pipe or cigarette, 
and waited for the wind to come. 

Along the silent and deserted beach long lines 
of coco-palms, which slope seaward to the trades, 
hang their drooping, languid plumes high above 
the shallow margin of the lagoon, which swishes 
and laps in gentle wavelets along the yellow 
sand. A shoal of pale grey mullet swim close 
inshore, for out beyond in the deepening green 
flit the quick shadows of the ever-preying frigate 
birds that watch the waters from above. 

'Tis roasting hot indeed. As the mist begins 



The Tia Kau. 



3 1 



to lift, the steely ocean gleam pains the eye like 
a vast sheet of molten lead, and the white stretch 
of sand above high-water mark in front of the 
native village seems to throb and quiver and 
waver to and fro ; the mat coverings of the 
long row of slender canoes further down crackle 
and warp and swell upward. 

Presently the one white trader on the little 
island comes to the doorway of his house and 
looks out. Not a living thing to be seen, 
except, far out beyond the reef, where the huge 
bodies of two blackflsh lie motionless upon the 
water, sunning themselves ; and just above his 
head, and sitting on its perch, a tame frigate- 
bird, whose fierce eye looks upward and out- 
ward at the blazing sun. 

" What a terror of a day ! " mutters the trader 
to himself, as he drinks his morning coffee, and 
then lazily sinks into a cane lounge on his 
verandah. He, too, will go to sleep until the 
breeze springs up, or some inconsiderate 
customer comes to buy tobacco, or tell him 
the local gossip. 

In and about the village — which is a little 
further back from the trader's house — the 
silence of the morning heat reigns supreme. 



32 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



The early meal of fish and taro has been , eaten, 
and every one is lying down, for the smooth 
white pebbles of sea-worn coral that cover the 
ground around the high-roofed houses of pan- 
danus thatch are hot even to the native foot, 
though here and there may be a cool strip of 
darkened shade from the overhanging branch 
of palm or breadfruit tree. Look through the 
open doorway of a house. There they lie, the 
brown-skinned lazy people, upon the cool 
matted floor, each one with a wooden aluga, 
or bamboo pillow, under his or her head, with 
their long black tresses of hair lying loosely 
uncoiled about the shoulders. Only three 
people are in this house, a big reddish-brown 
skinned man, a middle-aged woman, and a 
young girl. The man's and woman's heads 
are on the one pillow ; between them lies the 
mutual pipe smoked out in connubial amity ; 
the girl lies over in the corner beside a heap 
of young drinking coconuts and a basket of 
taro and fish, her slender figure clothed in 
nought but a thick girdle of fine pandanus 
leaf. She, too, has been smoking, for in her 
little hand is the half of a cigarette. 

A wandering pig, attracted by the smell of 



The Tia Kau. 



33 



food, trots slowly to the door, and stands 
eyeing the basket. His sleepy grunt betrays 
him, and awakens the girl, who flings her 
bamboo pillow at his head with a muttered 
curse ; and, crawling over to where her sleeping 
parents lie, she pillows her head upon her 
mother's naked thigh, and falls asleep again. 

Another hour passes, and then a faint breath 
moves and sways and rustles the drooping 
palms around the village, and the girl awakes. 
Had she been dreaming, or did she hear a far- 
away curious sound — a mingling of sharp, 
whistling notes and hoarse, deep gutturals, such 
as one may hear when a flock of terns and 
boobies are darting down upon their prey ? 
Tossing back her black mane of hair, she 
bends her head seaward and listens intently, 
and then, rising, goes to the open door, and 
looks out upon the shimmering blue. The 
white man, too, has heard, and she sees him 
running to the village. The dulled, sleepy look 
in her big eyes vanishes, and darting over to 
her slumbering father, she slaps his brawny arm. 

" Ala ! Ala ! awake, my father. There be a 
flock of gogo crying loudly, and the white man 
is running hither.'' 

4 



34 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



The big man springs to his feet, followed by 
his wife, and in a moment the whole village is 
awake, and the men run beachward to their 
canoes ; for the flock of gogo means that a shoal 
of bonito, perhaps twenty thousand or more, 
are passing the island on their way to Tia 
Kau. 

Before the men, laden with their fishing 
tackle, have reached the canoes, the village 
children are there, throwing off the coverings of 
mats in readiness for launching, and then, with a 
merry clamour of voices, the slender craft are 
lifted up and carried down to the water's edge. 
The white man, too, goes with them in one 
Muliao's canoe, and the women laugh and wish 
him luck as they see him strip to the waist like 
one of their own people, and show a skin almost 
as brown. 

Over the reef they go, thirty or more canoes, 
paddling to the west. There, a mile beyond, is 
a vast flock of gogo — a small, sooty tern — the 
density of whose swaying cloud is mingled with 
the snowy white of gulls. How they flutter, 
and turn, and dive, and soar aloft to dive 
again, feasting upon the shining baby kayiae, or 
mullet, that seek to escape from the ravenous 



The Tia Kau. 



35 



jaws of the bonito, whose way across the sea is 
marked by a wide streak of bubbling, hissing 
foam ! 

Meanwhile, as the canoes fly in pursuit, one 
man in each busies himself by hurriedly pre- 
paring his fellows' tackle, which is both for rod 
and deep-sea fishing. Lying side by side upon 
the ama> or outrigger grating, are four rods. 
And such rods ! twelve to fourteen feet in one 
piece, eight inches in circumference at the base, 
and tapering to an inch at the point. But big 
and clumsy as they look, they are light, tough, 
and springy. The line is of two-stranded fau 
(hibiscus bark), and is not quite as long as the 
rod itself ; the shank of the hook is of pearl- 
shell, gleaming and iridescent as polished opal, 
and the upward curving piece that forms the 
barbless point is cunningly lashed to the heel of 
the shank with fine banana fibre. In length 
these hooks range from one to three inches, and 
at the lashing of the point and shank are two 
tiny scarlet feathers of the parrokeet. Lying 
beside the rods are the thick, neatly curled 
lines for deep-sea work. But just now these 
are not wanted. 

And as the canoes draw near the whirling, 



36 



Wild Life in Southern Seas* 



shrilly-crying birds, the water becomes a wild, 
seething swirl of froth and foam, for the bonito 
are travelling swiftly onward, snapping and 
leaping at the persecuted kanae^ and their tens 
of thousands of bodies of shining blue and silver 
sparkle brightly in the sun. And then with a 
wild shout of glee the leading canoes shoot into 
the fray, quickly followed by the others. 

" Tu ! Tu ! " (" Stand up, stand ! ") cry the 
paddlers amidships, and in an instant the men 
seated for'ard and aft drop their paddles, seize 
their rods, and each man bracing his right leg 
against the rounded thwart on which he has 
been sitting, swings his bright, baitless hook 
into the whirl below. Almost ere it touches 
the water a fish leaps to it, the tough rod of 
pua quivers and trembles, the fisher grunts, and 
then with a strong, swift, and steady sweep of 
his naked arms, and a triumphant cry of 
" Mats ! " (" Struck ") the- first atu, ten pounds 
of sheeny blue and polished silver, is swung 
clear of the water and dropped into the canoe, 
where he kicks and struggles among the 
paddlers' feet. In another minute every other 
canoe is hard at work, and the loud shouts and 
cries of the excited natives add to the din of 



The Tia Kau. 



37 



the wheeling birds and the splashing of the 
water and the furious kicking and thumping 
against the frail, resonant sides of the canoes, as 
fish after fish is swept upward and outward, and 
dropped struggling into the bottom, among its 
bleeding and quivering fellows. 

Around the largest canoe, from which six 
natives fish, is the wildest boil and bubble of 
all, for the cunning crew have hung from a 
bended stick over the side a bright piece of 
mother-of-pearl, and at this the hungry fish 
leap fiercely. How they swarm and " ring " 
round the canoe like a mob of frightened cattle 
upon some wide Australian plain, who smell 
their deadly enemy — a wild black ! Not that 
the bonito are frightened ; they are simply 
mad for the shining hooks, which look so like 
young and tender half-grown flying-fish. 

But still on and on the main body go, and 
the canoes go with them, steadily on to the Tia 
Kau, although now each man has taken perhaps 
twenty or thirty fish from eight to ten pounds 
in weight ; and the paddlers' arms are growing 
weary. Already the white man is tired, and is 
sitting down, smoking his pipe, and watching 
the moving cloud of birds above. x\nd yet his 



38 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



comrades swing their rods, and add fish after 
fish to the quivering heap below. Time enough 
for them to smoke, they think, when the fish 
are gone — and then, suddenly, with an almost 
noiseless " flur-r-r ! " they are gone, and the 
white man laughs ; he knows that there will 
be no more atu to-day. For there, swimming 
swiftly to and fro upon the now quiet surface 
are half a dozen pala, the dreaded foe of the 
bonito for all time. 

The canoes come to a dead stop ; the shoal 
of atu have dived perhaps a hundred fathoms 
deep, and will be seen no more for many an 
hour. And so the natives sit down and smoke 
their pipes, and hurl reproaches and curses at 
the pala for spoiling sport. 

" Why grumble, Muliao ? " asks the white 
man of his friend. " See, already the canoes 
are weighted down with fish. But yet let us 
catch one of these devils before we return to 
the shore." 

" Meitake ! Aye, that shall we, though who 
careth to eat of pala when bonito is to his 
hand ? But yet to punish these greedy devils 

for coming here " and Muliao takes from 

the outrigger a coil of stout three-stranded line, 



The Tia Kau, 



39 



which he makes into a running bowline and 
hangs over the side of the canoe from the end 
of his rod, while another man picks up a small 
bonito, passes a line through its gills, and then 
throws it far out upon the water only to draw 
it in again as fast as he can pull, first passing it 
quickly through the bowline on Muliao's rod. 
But already a pala y a long, slender, scaleless 
fish, six times as big as the biggest salmon ever 
caught, and with teeth like a rip-saw, has heard 
the splash, and is speeding after the decoy. 
Deftly the dead fish is drawn through the trap, 
followed by the eager jaws and round head and 
shoulders of its pursuer. Then, whish ! the 
bowline jerks, slips over his smooth, rounded 
body, and tightens in a fatal grip upon the 
broad, bony tail. And then there is a mighty 
struggling, and splashing, and leaping, and the 
canoe shoots hither and thither as the crew haul 
on the line ; for a full-grown pala is as strong 
as a porpoise. At last, however, he is dragged 
alongside, and then Muliao, grasping a heavy 
turtle-spear in his right hand, rises to his feet 
and watches. And then, with arm of strength 
and eye of hawk, the spear is sped, and crashes 
through the pala s bony head. 



4° 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



" Aue ! " and Muliao leans pantingly back in 
the stern. " Pull him in, my friends, and then 
let us to the shore. To-morrow, if the day be 
fair, shall we fish together on Tia Kau, and 
with God's blessing and the help of the white 
man's tobacco catch many fish." 



The Areois. 



A FEW years ago, during the stay of one 
of Her Majesty's ships at Huahine in the 
Society Islands, there came on board, to pay his 
respects to the commander, an old white trader. 
He was accompanied by an ancient native, who, 
he said, was his wife's grandfather. The old 
islander, although nearly bent double with age, 
was very lively in his conversation, and spoke 
English with ease and correctness. Captain 

M , after discussing the state of the island 

with the trader, inquired of him where the old 
native had learned to speak such excellent 
English. " I suppose, " he added, " he was one 
of the earliest converts to Christianity ? " 

The trader laughed. " No, indeed, sir. 
There's not much of the missionary about 
Matapuupuu. He did gammon to be converted 
once, but he soon went back to his old gods 

4 1 



42 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



again. Why, sir, that old fellow was chief 
priest here once, and the first man of the Areoi 
society — and he's the only one left now." 

Captain M had heard of that mysterious 

body whose power in the early days of 
missionary effort was so great and so far-reaching 
in its terrifying and degrading influences as to 
at one time bring the spread of Christianity to 
a standstill. He therefore looked at the native 
before him with unusual interest ; and, as if 
aware of what was passing in the officer's mind, 
the object of his scrutiny raised his head and 
laughed. " Yes, sir, I am the last man of the 
Areoi on Huahine. There are one or two 
more of us on Taiarapu, in Tahiti." 

« Why have you not become a Christian in 
your old age, then, now that there are no more 
Areois left ? What good can it do you to 
remain a heathen ? " 

Old Matapuupuu shrugged his wrinkled 
shoulders — " What is the good of Christianity 
to me now ? I am too old to get anything by 
being a Christian. It is better for me to be an 
Areoi. I am very old and poor, although I 
made a lot of money when I was sailing in the 
whaleships. But, although I am so poor, I get 



The Areots. 



43 



plenty to eat, for the people here are afraid of 
me. If I became a Christian they would give 
me nothing to eat, for my power over them 
would be gone." 

" But I should be ashamed to have it known 
that you belonged to such a wicked lot of 

scoundrels, old man," said Captain M with 

assumed severity ; " everything that was done by 
the Areois was bad. Had not their power been 
broken by the missionaries there would have 
been no more people left in these islands in 
another twenty years after they had settled 
here." 

" Bah," answered the old ex-priest, derisively, 
" that is only missionary talk. There have been 
Areoi since first men were born. And, see, the 
people liked us ; for we gave them songs, and 
music, and dancing. It is true that we made 
the women who bore us children kill them ; but 
that was wisely done ; for these islands are but 
little places, and but for us there would have 
come a time when the people would have eaten 
each other for hunger. It is better that useless 
children should die than grown people should 
starve." 

Half an hour later the trader and the old ex- 



44 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



priest Areoi bade the captain goodbye, and the 
officer, as he watched them going over the side, 
turned to the ship's doctor and said with a 
laugh, " What an unmitigated old heathen." 

" But there's a good deal of sound logic 
in his contentions," replied the doctor, seriously. 

The history of the Areois of Polynesia and 
the Uritois of the Micronesian Islands is an 
interesting subject, and Mr. Ellis in his 
" Researches " has given us a full account of 
the former ; while Padre Canova, a Jesuit 
missionary who was killed in the Caroline 
Islands before the time of Cook, has left on 
record an account of the dreaded and mysterious 
Uritois society of that archipelago. The Areois 
are now extinct, but the Uritois, whose practices 
are very similar to those of the Polynesian 
fraternity are still in existence, though not 
possessed of anything like the power they 
wielded in former days. 

" The Areois of Polynesia," says Mr. Ellis, 
" were a fraternity of strolling players, and 
privileged liberties, who spent their days in 
travelling from island to island, and from one 
district to another, exhibiting their pantomimes, 



The Areois. 



45 



and spreading a moral contagion throughout 
society." (Each band or section of the society 
was called a " mareva," corresponding with the 
Samoan " malaga " — a party of travellers ; and, 
indeed, in Australian parlance they might have 
been designated as larrikin " pushes.") " Before 
the company set out great preparation was 
necessary. Numbers of pigs were killed and 
presented to the god Oro ; large quantities of 
plantains and bananas, with other fruits, were 
also offered upon his altars. Several weeks were 
necessary to complete the preliminary cere- 
monies. The concluding parts of these 
consisted in erecting, on board their canoes, 
two temporary maraes, or temples, for the 
worship of Orotetefa and his brother, the 
tutelary deities of the society. This was merely 
a symbol of the presence of the gods ; and 
consisted principally in a stone for each, from 
Oro's marae, and a few red feathers for each, 
from the inside of his sacred image. Into these 
symbols the gods were supposed to enter when 
the priest pronounced a short ' uba,' or prayer, 
immediately before the sailing of the fleet. 
The numbers connected with this fraternity, and 
the magnitude of some of their expeditions will 



46 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



appear from the fact of Cook's witnessing on 
one occasion, in Huahine, the departure of 
seventy canoes filled with Areois. On landing 
at the place of destination they proceeded to the 
residence of the king or chief, and presented 
their ' marotai,' or present : a similar offering 
was also sent to the temple and to the gods, as 
an acknowledgment for the preservation they 
had experienced at sea. If they remained in 
the neighbourhood preparations were made for 
their dances and other performances. 

" On public occasions, their appearance was, 
in some respects, such as it is not proper to 
describe. Their bodies were painted with 
charcoal, and their faces, especially, stained with 
the ' mati,' or scarlet dye. Sometimes they 
wore a girdle of the yellow ti leaves, which, in 
appearance, resembled the feather girdles of the 
Peruvians or other South American tribes. At 
other times they wore a vest of ripe yellow 
plantain leaves, and ornamented their heads 
with wreaths of the bright yellow and scarlet 
leaves of the * hutu,' or ' Barringtonia ' ; but, 
in general, their appearance was far more 
repulsive than when they wore these partial 
coverings." 



The Areois. 



47 



" Upaupa " was the name of many of their 
exhibitions. In performing these, they some- 
times sat in a circle on the ground, and recited, 
in concert, a legend or song in honour of the 
gods, or some distinguished Areoi. The leader 
of the party stood in the centre, and introduced 
the recitation with a sort of prologue, when, 
with a number of fantastic movements and atti- 
tudes, those that sat around began their song in 
a slow and measured tone and voice, which in- 
creased as they proceeded, till it became vociferous 
and unintelligibly rapid. It was also accompanied 
by movements of the arms and hands, in exact 
keeping with the tones of the voice, until they 
were wrought to the highest pitch of excitement. 
This they continued until, becoming breathless 
and exhausted, they were obliged to suspend the 
performance. 

Their public entertainments frequently con- 
sisted in delivering speeches, accompanied by 
every variety of gesture and action ; and their 
representations, on these occasions, assumed 
something of the histrionic character. The 
priests and others were fearlessly ridiculed in 
these performances, in which allusion was 
ludicrously made to public events. In the 



4 8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



" tapiti," or " Oroa," they sometimes engaged 
in wrestling, but never in boxing ; that would 
have been considered too degrading for them. 
Dancing, however, appeared to have been their 
favourite and most frequent performance. In 
this they were always led by the manager or 
chief. Their bodies, blackened with charcoal 
and stained with " mati," rendered the exhibi- 
tion of their persons on these occasions most 
disgusting. They often maintained their dance 
through the greater part of the night, accom- 
panied by their voices, and the music of the 
flute and drum. These amusements frequently 
continued for a number of days and nights 
successively at the same place. The " upaupa " 
was then terminated, and they journeyed on to 
the next district or principal chieftain's abode, 
where the same train of dances, wrestling, and 
pantomimic exhibitions was repeated. 

Several other gods were supposed to preside 
over the " upaupa " as well as the two brothers 
who were the guardian deities of the Areois. 
The gods of these diversions, according to the 
ideas of the people, were monsters in vice, and, 
of course, patronised every evil practice perpe- 
trated during such seasons of public festivity. 



The Areois. 



49 



Substantial, spacious, and sometimes highly 
ornamental houses were erected in several dis- 
tricts throughout the islands, principally for their 
accommodation and the exhibition of the Areoi 
performances. Sometimes they performed in 
their canoes as they approached the shore ; 
especially if they had the king of the island 
or any principal chief on board their fleet. 
When one of these companies thus advanced 
towards the land, with their streamers floating 
in the wind, their drums and pipes sounding, 
and the Areois, attended by their chief, who 
acted as their prompter, appeared on a stage 
erected for the purpose, with their wild dis- 
tortions of persons, antic gestures, painted 
bodies, and vociferated songs, mingling with 
the sound of the drum and the flute, the 
dashing of the sea, and the rolling and 
breaking of the surf on the adjacent reef, the 
whole must have presented a ludicrous but yet 
imposing spectacle, accompanied with a con- 
fusion of sight and sound, of which it is not 
easy to form an adequate idea. 

"The above were the principal occupations of 
the Areois ; and in the constant repetition of 
these often obscene exhibitions they passed their 

5 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



lives, strolling from the habitation of one chief 
to that of another, or sailing among the different 
islands of the group. The farmers, i.e., those 
who owned plantations, did not, in general, 
much respect them " (but they feared them), 
" but the chiefs, and those addicted to pleasure, 
held them in high estimation, furnishing them 
with liberal entertainments, and sparing no 
property to gratify them. This often proved 
the cause of most unjust and cruel oppression 
to the poor cultivators. When a party of 
Areois appeared in a district, in order to pro- 
vide daily sumptuous entertainment for them, 
the local chief would send his servants to 
the best plantations in the neighbourhood, and 
these grounds, without any ceremony, they 
plundered of whatever was fit for use. Such 
lawless acts of robbery were repeated every day, 
so long as the Areois continued in the district ; 
and when they departed the gardens exhibited a 
scene of desolation and ruin that, but for the 
influence of the chiefs, would have brought 
fearful vengeance upon those who had occa- 
sioned it. 

A number of distinct classes prevailed among 
the Areois, each of which was distinguished by 



The Areois. 



51 



the kind or situation of the tatooing on their 
bodies. The first or highest class was called 
"Avae parai," painted leg; the leg being com- 
pletely blackened from the foot to the knee. 
The second class was called " Otiore," both 
arms being marked from the fingers to the 
shoulders. The third class was " Harotea," 
both sides of the body, from the armpits 
downwards, being tattooed. The fourth class, 
called " Hua," had only two or three small 
figures, impressed with the same material, on 
each shoulder. The fifth class, called " Atoro," 
had one small stripe tattooed on the left side. 
Every individual in the sixth class, called 
" Ohemara," had a small circle marked round 
each ankle. The seventh class, or " Poo," 
which included all who were in the noviciate, 
was usually denominated the " Poo faarearea," 
or pleasure-making class, and by them the most 
laborious part of the pantomimes, dances, etc., 
was performed ; the principal or higher order 
of Areois, though plastered over with charcoal, 
were generally careful not to exhaust themselves 
by physical effort for the amusement of others. 

Like the society of the Uritoi (the Uritoy 
of the Jesuit Canova), the Areoi classes were 



52 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



attended by a troop of what may be termed 
camp-followers, who, as Ellis observes, " at- 
tached themselves to the dissipated and wander- 
ing fraternity, prepared their food and their 
dresses, and attended them on their journeys 
for the purpose of witnessing their dances and 
sharing in their banquets. These people were 
called Fanaunau (/.*., propagators), because they 
did not destroy their offspring, which was in- 
dispensable with the regular members of the 
whole seven classes." Curiously enough, while 
steeped in every imaginable wickedness, there 
was with the Areoi a rigid code of morality 
among themselves. " Each Areoi, although 
addicted to every kind of licentiousness, brought 
with him his wife, who was also a member of 
the society. And so jealous were they in this 
respect, that improper conduct towards the 
wife of one of their own number was some- 
times punished with death." At Tahaa, in the 
Society Islands, a young girl, wife of one of 
the class called " Harotea," who had miscon- 
ducted herself with a lad at Fare, in Huahine, 
was taken before the assembled band of Areois, 
and deliberately slain by the leader, who was 
her uncle. Her husband, who begged for her 



The Areois. 



53 



life, met the same fate, as an unworthy member 
of the society. " Singular as it may appear, 
the Areoi institution was held in the greatest 
repute by the chiefs and higher classes ; and, 
monsters of iniquity as they were, the grand- 
masters, or members of the first order (the 
' Avae parai ') were regarded as a sort of super- 
natural beings, and treated with a corresponding 
degree of veneration by many of the vulgar and 
ignorant. The fraternity was not confined to 
any particular rank or grade in society, but was 
composed of individuals from every class of 
people. But although thus accessible to all, 
the admission was attended with a variety of 
ceremonies ; a protracted noviciate followed ; 
and it was only by progressive advancement 
that any were admitted to the superior dis- 
tinctions. 

" It was imagined that those " — to continue 
Ellis — " who became Areois were generally 
prompted or inspired (by their tutelar gods) 
to adopt this course of life. When, therefore, 
any individual wished to be admitted to the 
ranks of the Areois, he repaired to some public 
exhibition in a state of apparent neneva or 
derangement. Round his or her waist was a 



54 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



girdle of yellow plantains or ti leaves ; his face 
was stained with matt, or scarlet dye ; his brow 
decorated with a shade of curiously painted 
yellow coconut leaves ; his hair perfumed with 
powerfully scented coconut oil, and ornamented 
with a profusion of fragrant flowers. Thus 
arrayed, disfigured and yet adorned, he rushed 
through the crowd assembled round the house 
in which the actors or dancers were performing, 
and, leaping into the circle, joined with seeming 
frantic wildness in the dance or pantomime. 
He continued thus in the midst of the per- 
formers until the exhibition closed. This was 
considered an indication of his desire to join 
their company ; and, if approved, he was ap- 
pointed to wait, as a servant, on the principal 
Areois. After a considerable trial of his natural 
disposition, docility, and devotedness in this 
occupation, if he persevered in his determina- 
tion to join himself with them, he was 
inaugurated with all the attendant rites and 
observances. 

" This ceremony took place at some taupiti, 
or other great meeting of the body, when the 
principal Areoi brought forth the candidate 
arrayed in the ahu haio, a curiously-stained 



55 



sort of native cloth, the badge of their order, 
and presented him to the members, who were 
convened in full assembly. The Areois, as 
such, had distinct names, and, at his intro- 
duction, the candidate received from the chief 
of the body the name by which in future he 
would be known among them. He was now 
directed in the first instance to murder his 
children — a deed of horrid barbarity — which 
he was in general only too ready to perpetrate. 
He was then instructed to bend his left arm, 
and strike his right hand upon the bend of the 
left elbow, which at the same time he struck 
against his side, whilst he repeated the song, 
or invocation, for the occasion. He was then 
commanded to seize the waist-cloth worn by 
the chief woman present, and by this act he 
completed his initiation, and became a member 
of the seventh, or lowest class. 

" There can be no doubt that the desire of 
females to become members of this strange 
association was caused by the many privileges 
it afforded them. The principal of these was 
that, by becoming an Areoi, a woman was 
enabled to eat the same food as the men ; for 
the restrictions of the tabu upon women in this 



56 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



respect were very severe. Females, even of 
the highest rank, were prohibited, on pain of 
death, from eating the flesh of animals offered 
to the gods, which was always reserved for the 
men ; but once admitted to the ranks of the 
Areois, they were regarded as the equals of 
men in every respect, and partook of the same 
food." 

And so these people travelled about from 
village to village, and from island to island, and 
sang and danced, and acted for days together ; 
but though these "were the general amusements 
of the Areois, they were not the only purposes 
for which they assembled." They included 

"All monstrous, all prodigious things." 

The Jesuit Canova, in the account he gives 
of the Uritois of the Caroline Islands, says : — 
u It is absolutely impossible for the average 
human mind to conceive the frightful cruelty, 
the hideous debauchery, and unparalleled licen- 
tiousness to which these people surrender 
themselves when practising their soul-terrifying 
rites." 

Yet their power and influence were extra- 



The Areois. 



57 



ordinary. In their journeyings to and fro 
among the islands they would sometimes 
locate themselves among a community who 
were totally unacquainted with them save by 
hearsay, and who regarded their advent with 
feelings of terror ; yet, before long, numbers 
of these same people would desire to, and did 
enter their ranks. " In their pastimes, in their 
accompanying crimes, and the often-repeated 
practices of the most unrelenting, murderous 
cruelty, these wandering Areois passed their 
lives, esteemed by the people as a superior 
order of beings, closely allied to the gods, and 
deriving from them direct sanction, even for 
their heartless murders. Free from labour or 
care, they roved from island to island, supported 
by the priests and the chiefs ; and often feasted 
on plunder from the gardens of the industrious 
husbandman, while his own family was not in- 
frequently deprived thereby for a time of the 
means of existence. Such was their life of 
luxurious and licentious indolence and crime. 
And such was the character of their delusive 
system of superstition that for them too was 
reserved the Elysium which their fabulous 
mythology taught them to believe was provided 



5 8 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

in a future state of existence for those so pre- 
eminently favoured by the gods." 

That such a deadly and satanic delusion 
should be implanted and fostered in the minds 
of a naturally amiable, hospitable, and intelligent 
race can only be accounted for by the belief 
of the sacred source from which it sprang, 
i.e., the mandate of Oro ; and its destruction 
by the advances of civilisation had a profound 
effect on the minds of those who had witnessed 
the terrible deeds perpetrated when the Society 
Islands lay under the terror of the Areois. 



Australia s Heritage ; The New 
Hebrides Group. 



EVERY now and again the Australian 
colonies are disturbed by a rumour that 
the present Anglo-French convention for the 
" control " (whatever that may mean) of the 
New Hebrides is about to terminate, and that 
one of the best and most fertile of the island 
groups in the South Pacific will be annexed by 
France, which is hot to possess them. Perhaps 
the inception of this rumour may be due but to 
the nearing prospect of Australian Federation, 
which would necessarily revive in the public 
mind the fact that a few years ago two French 
men-of-war landed some hundreds of soldiers, 
virtually took possession of the whole group, 
and were only withdrawn on the united protest 
of the Australian colonies to the Imperial 
Government. From that time began the present 

59 



60 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



dual control — i.e., the patrolling of the group 
by ships of war of both nations — and a very 
unsatisfactory arrangement it has proved. Five 
years ago, the late Governor of Fiji, in his 
capacity of High Commissioner for the Western 
Pacific, when questioned as to the claims of the 
British settlers in the New Hebrides, and to the 
possibility of the group being annexed by either 
Power, said, " I cannot tell how the matter will 
be settled. Both France and England want the 
New Hebrides ; each nation is determined that 
the other shall not get it. In the meantime 
things must, of course, go on as they are 
doing." And things have been going on very 
unsatisfactorily, in the opinion of the men who 
have made the group what it is — the English 
settlers, traders, planters, and merchants. It is 
not my purpose, however, to enter into the 
rival claims of the English and French residents, 
but to give a brief description of the islands 
themselves. Yet one thing may be said, and 
that is this : The group was opened up and 
surveyed by British ships ; British and Austra- 
lian money has done a great civilising work 
there ; the men who first discovered them to 
commerce were Englishmen ; the natives are 



Australia s Heritage. 



61 



ardently desirous that England should annex 
their islands ; and their occupation by France 
for the extension of her malign convict system 
will constitute a menace to the Australian 
colonies, leaving alone the danger to them which 
the possession of such a magnificent base as 
these islands would give to a Power who may 
some day be at war with England. But now as 
to the group itself. 

Next to the Fiji's and the Solomon Islands, 
the New Hebrides are the finest cluster of 
islands in the South Pacific ; and were British 
settlers in the group freed from their present 
harassing disabilities in the way of employing 
native labour to work their plantations it would 
leave Fiji far behind in the development of its 
abounding resources. It possesses magnificent 
harbours, forests of timber awaiting the axeman 
and saw-miller, land suitable for coffee and 
cotton, and other tropical products, a climate 
that is no hotter than that of Ceylon or Samoa, 
and a native population which, within two years 
after the declaration of British sovereignty, 
would, owing to the influence of the English 
missionaries in the group, be as amenable to the 
precepts of civilisation as the too-highly 



62 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Christianised people of Tonga and Fiji, where 
to-day a man's life and property are as safe 
as if he lived under the shadow of Westminster. 

The largest island of the group is Santo — 
the Espiritu Santo of Quiros, who in a memoir 
to his Royal master, Philip III., spoke of it as 
" a very great island : a country of the richest 
fertility and beauty. It is to my mind one of 
the finest in the world, and capable under 
colonisation of becoming one of the richest 
places in the Southern Hemisphere." Its length 
exceeds eighty miles with an average of thirty- 
two in width, and within the great sweep of the 
mighty barrier reef that encloses it are some 
scores of clusters of low-lying islands of purely 
coral formation, densely covered by groves of 
coco-palms, and inhabited by a numerous 
population of strong athletic savages of 
Melanesian blood, whose earliest recollections 
of white men date from the old colonial days, 
when the group was visited by sandal-wooding 
ships from Sydney and vessels engaged in the 
colonial whale fishery. The present race that 
people the mainland are, no doubt, new comers 
within the past three hundred years, for on 
several parts of the islands there are traces of 



Australia s Heritage. 



63 



occupation by an earlier race : detached pillars 
composed of large stones, long stretches of 
broken walls indicating walled towns, and 
fragments of rough masonry cemented with a 
chunam of coral lime and river sand. Much of 
Santo is covered by noble forests of timber, and 
the littoral is of remarkable fertility. The 
inhabitants, though nearly all thorough savages, 
have a better reputation than most of the people 
inhabiting the larger islands of the group, and 
the record of white men who have lost their 
lives in the group is low on Santo. 

An island with an evil reputation in the past 
is Tanna, for the inhabitants are savage and 
treacherous, and though there are English traders 
living among them in security, the Tanna people 
have perpetrated some fearful massacres upon 
vessels engaged in trading and recruiting native 
labour. The whole island is a magnificent 
panorama of tropical island beauty, thirty-five 
miles long by eleven in width. Towards the 
southern end the land trends away in a gradual 
slope from lofty mountains, densely wooded 
and enveloped in mist and clouds. The low- 
lying coast lands are of surpassing fertility, and 
millions of coco-palms encompass the shores, 



6 4 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



while about the thickly populated villages are 
carefully tended plantations of sugar-cane, 
bananas, pineapples, yams, taro, and other 
tropical vegetables and fruit. An old New 
Hebrides trader captain estimates the population 
of Tanna at 8,000, and believes it could sup- 
port 30,000. 

Mallicolo — a favourite recruiting ground for 
the Fijian and Queensland vessels employed in 
the labour trade — is about fifty-five miles in 
length, with an average width of twenty miles, 
and is covered with magnificent forests from its 
littoral to the very summit of the range that 
traverses the island. That the timber of Malli- 
colo is valuable for ship-building purposes 
Australian trading captains well know, but until 
the group is annexed by either France or 
England there is but little prospect of its forests 
being exploited in a systematic manner. The 
island is intersected by some splendid streams of 
water ; and although malaria] fever is prevalent 
at certain seasons of the year, the climate on 
the whole may be considered healthy. It is a 
favourite rendezvous for both the English and 
French war-vessels engaged in patrolling the 
group, and is also frequently visited by trading 



Australia s Heritage. 



65 



vessels from Sydney and those in the service of 
the French New Hebrides Company — an asso- 
ciation that while possessing a considerable 
amount of purchased land in the various 
islands is merely kept going by a subsidy 
from the French Government. 

Aneityum is a high and mountainous island 
with but a narrow belt of low-lying land 
running round its coast, but it possesses some 
splendid forests. A saw mill, owned by an 
Australian firm, has been established here and 
some excellent timber has been produced for 
local purposes — house-building, ship-building, 
etc. This island is but twelve miles in length 
and about six in width. The natives are all 
(alleged) Christians and number about 2,200. 
They were the first to come under missionary 
influence, and are a peaceable, law-abiding race. 
They are, of course, of Papuan blood, and of 
a very dark colour, with woolly or frizzy hair 
like that of most Fijians. No harbours for 
large vessels are available, but the steamers of 
the Australasian New Hebrides Company and 
small sailing craft find anchorage under the 
north-west end of the island during the strong 
south-east trade winds. 

6 



66 



Wild Life in Souther?? Seas. 



The seismic forces of nature are much in 
evidence in the New Hebrides group. On 
Tanna there is a volcano on the south-east 
end of the island that is frequently in a state of 
commotion. Viewed from seaward on a dark 
night it presents a weird and awe-inspiring 
spectacle. Rumblings, groanings, and dull 
roaring sounds emanate from its interior, and 
the noise of its restless convulsions can be 
heard at Aneityum, nearly fifty miles distant. 
The volcano itself presents an impressive sight 
even in daylight, rising as it does to a thousand 
feet, the grim reddish-brown of its perfect cone 
affording in its barren sides a startling contrast 
to the amazing wealth of verdure that, despite 
its fierce eruptions, prevails everywhere around 
it. The mighty forces that lie in its heart are 
seldom quiet ; and at short intervals a straight 
column of smoke, dark, heavy, and pall-like, 
shoots upward, till, as it ascends, a canopy is 
formed. This, in the course of half an hour or 
so, expands and unfolds itself till it resembles 
a gigantic aerial mushroom. Then it gradually 
disperses ; hollow groanings and deep rumblings 
follow, and then, as the black sulphurous smoke 
changes to a pale blue, there again comes a 



Australia s Heritage. 



67 



sudden convulsion, and a fresh pillar of inky 
smoke shoots high in the air. 

Erromanga will always be associated with the 
name of John Williams, the pioneer missionary 
to the South Seas, who was there murdered 
with his colleague, Mr. Harris, in 1839. In 
later years four other missionaries yielded up 
their lives to the savage inhabitants, the last 
being Mr. Gordon, who was killed there in 
1872. At the present time the Erromangans 
are, with the exception of the people of the 
little island of Tongoa, the most thoroughly 
Christianised inhabitants of the group. 

At Vate, the entrepot of the whole group, 
is established the principal trading centre of 
the New Hebrides, and here live the greater 
portion of the English and French settlers 
established in the group. Vate is thirty-five 
miles long by eight broad, of moderate eleva- 
tion, has some noble harbours, a fertile soil, 
splendid banana plantations, and, in a small 
way, is the Ceylon of the South Seas, 



"Jack in the Atolls. 



HISTORY does repeat itself. The story 
of the Cornish clergyman who in the 
middle of his discourse jumped down from 
his pulpit, and, imploring his hearers to " start 
fair," raced them to the scene of a promising 
wreck, has its Polynesian counterpart — clergy- 
man, church, and all. Some, little difference 
there is, however, with regard to other acces- 
sories of the South Sea story ; as the coloured 
minister, instead of the regulation surplice and 
black trousers, wore a white shirt only, and 
trousers were a missing quantity. He was, 
as I have said, a native clergyman, and lived 
and laboured — "laboured" is merely euphe- 
mistic, as any one knows who has knowledge 
of native teachers — on one of the atolls in the 
Caroline Islands. Service had commenced, and 
Miti Paulo Ionatani {Anglic e — the Reverend 

68 



yack in the Atolls. 



6 9 



Paul Jonathan) had just given out the first 
hymn, when there was a sudden commotion 
among his squatting congregation. A native, 
his bronzed skin streaming with perspiration 
and his frame panting with excitement, had 
put his head and shoulders through one of 
the low, wide windows of the sacred edifice 
(from the outside, of course), and the Reverend 
Paul, in severe but dignified tones, called him 
an unmannerly pig, and then asked him what 
he wanted. 

" The sharks are coming in^ your reverence ! " 

In an instant the deep religious calm of 
the congregation was broken up, and half a 
minute later the church was cleared in a mad 
rush to get to the beach, launch the canoes, and 
go a-fishing for sharks, the minister following 
as hard as he could run, divesting himself 
of his garment of office by the way. Like 
his Cornish prototype, he meant to have a 
share of the plunder. (I wonder whether the 
Cornish story originated from the Polynesian 
story, or vice versa. Both are true.) 

But shark-catching means money down there 
in the Carolines and the equatorial atolls of the 
North and South Pacific ; and sometimes vast 



7 o 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



numbers of sharks, swimming together in 
" schools," like sardines, enter the lagoons at 
certain seasons of the year and cause no end of 
excitement among the brown-skinned people ; 
just as much, in fact, as that which occurs when 
a " school " of bottle-nosed whales is driven 
ashore by the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands. 

Every now and then one may see noted 
in Australian papers the arrival of an island 
trading vessel bringing, among other cargo, so 
many tons of shark-fins ; and the uninitiated 
naturally wonder for what on earth shark-fins 
are brought to the marts of civilisation. That 
is easily answered — they are regarded as a great 
delicacy by John Chinaman. (By the way, it 
seems an oversight that no one in England 
thought of presenting Li Hung Chang, when 
he visited England a year ago, with a string 
of shark-fins in return for his inexhaustible 
presents to the British aristocracy of packets 
of tea ; a dozen or so — especially if not quite 
dried — would have moved him greatly.) 

For the last fifty years shark-catching has 
been followed on a large or small scale by 
the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, from 
Tonga in the south to the beauteous Pelews 



'Jack in the Atolls. 



7 1 



in the far north-west. Until of late years 
only the fins and tails were cut off, dried on 
strings, and sold by the natives to either 
resident traders or wandering trading vessels. 
By these latter they are taken to Sydney, and 
there sold to Chinese merchants, who in their 
turn ship them home to China. But nowadays 
not only are the fins and tails dried by the 
natives in increasing quantities, but the whole 
skin is stripped off, pegged out like a bullock's 
hide, and sold to the white men. But the 
skins do not go to China. They are sold 
to German trading vessels, and no one even 
to this day knoweth for what purpose they 
are used ; some new process of tanning the 
intractable cuticle of Jack Shark has been dis- 
covered in Germany, it is said. No one knows 
more than this ; probably the only man who 
does know is that modern Lokman the Wise, 
the Emperor William : may he tell us dull Eng- 
lish people all about it some day when he, in his 
Improvement-of-the-Universe Scheme, writes us 
something on the subject of cross-breeding in 
sharks, whereby a toothless and amiable variety 
may replace the present breed, which have no 
manners to speak of and are always hungry. 



7 2 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



But I want to say something of how and where 
sharks are caught and of those who catch them. 

In the high, fertile islands of the North 
and South Pacific, such as Samoa, the Hervey 
Group, and the Society Islands there is but 
little of this dangerous fishing done. Nature 
there is too bounteous to the brown-skinned 
people. Born to a fruitful soil, with abundance 
of both vegetable and animal food, the natives 
have no need to exploit the ocean day and 
night in order to live, as do the wild, sun- 
baked denizens of the low-lying Equatorial 
atolls of the Gilbert and Marshall groups 
and the countless coral islets of the Western 
Carolines, where the people know naught of 
the joys of the mealy yam or taro, and the 
toothsome baked bread-fruit and sucking-pig 
are not. For there is nothing to eat on such 
islands as those but coconuts and fish, varied 
occasionally by puraka — a huge, coarse vege- 
table as thick as an elephant's leg, with a 
touch of elephantiasis thrown in. 

But there are plenty of sharks. They 
swarm. Go out in a canoe at night-time, 
anywhere in one of the lagoons, light a torch 
of au lama (dried coconut leaves), and look. 



Jack in the Atolls, 



73 



Perhaps you may only see one or two at first, 
swimming to and fro at a few fathoms' depth ; 
in ten minutes you may see fifty ! and they 
are all hungry. A bad short time would a 
man have did he fall overboard at night. In 
daylight the natives know no fear of Jack, 
but they do not like getting capsized in the 
darkness ; and the darker the night the more 
danger. And even when he is young, and not 
a fathom long from his nose to his tail, Jack 
can snap off the arm of a full-grown man as 
easily as a man can swallow an oyster. 

So, there being plenty of sharks, the Ellice, 
Gilbert, or Marshall islander is resigned to the 
poverty of his island soil, catches his shark, 
and is thankful. For he sells Jack's fins and 
tail to the trader for tobacco, calico, guns, 
ammunition, and gin — when gin can be bought ; 
and his wife, when she meets her brown-skinned 
lord and master on the beach as he returns 
from fishing, looks anxiously into the blood- 
stained canoe to see how many kapakau (fins) 
he has taken. Two or three dozen or so, 
when dried, may mean that lovely hat trimmed 
with violent green ribbon on a bilious red and 
yellow ground that the trader showed her one 



74 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



day. Then she picks up the " take," puts it 
into a basket, and an hour later Jack's motive 
power is suspended on a cinnet line between 
two coconut trees, drying for market. 

All the people of the Gilbert Islands are ex- 
pert shark fishermen ; but the men of Paanopa 
(Ocean Island) claim to be, and are, facile 
frinceps in the forcible art of clubbing a shark 
before he knows what is the matter with him, 
and what the horrid thing is that has got into 
his mouth. 

First of all, though, something about Ocean 
Island itself. It is but a tiny spot, rising 
abruptly from the sea, about 300 feet in 
height, situated fifty miles south of the 
Equator, and in 168 deg. 25 min. east longi- 
tude, and inhabited by a fierce, turbulent race 
of dark-skinned Malayo - Polynesians, allied 
in want of manners and fulness of beastly 
customs to their Gilbert Island neighbours, 
three hundred miles to the windward. Half 
a cable's length from the land itself, and not 
twenty yards from the flat shelving coral reef 
that juts abruptly out from the narrow strip 
of beach, the water is of great depth — fifty, 
in some places ninety, fathoms deep. 



yack in the Atolls. 



is 



At the first break of dawn the men, naked 
save for a girdle of grass around their loins, 
sally out from their grey-roofed houses of 
thatch, and launch their canoes for the day's 
work. Wonderful canoes these are, too — mere 
shells composed of small strips of wood sewn 
together with coconut cinnet. In no one of 
them will you see a plank more than two feet 
in length and six inches in width ; many are 
constructed of such small pieces of wood so 
deftly fitted and sewn together that one wonders 
how the builders ever had the patience to com- 
plete the craft. But wood is scarce on Ocean 
Island ; and whenever — as sometimes happens 
— a canoe is smashed by the struggles of a 
more than usually powerful shark, the tiny 
timbers are carefully picked up by other canoes 
and restored to the owners, who fit them 
together by degrees until a new hull is pieced 
together. 

Perhaps twenty or more canoes go out toge- 
ther. No need to go far. Just outside the 
ledge of the reef is enough, for there Jack is 
waiting, accompanied by all-sized relatives, male 
and female. Lying upon the little grating of 
crossed sticks that reaches from the outrigger to 



7 6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the gunwale is the tackle. Rude it is, but effec- 
tual — a huge wooden hook, cunningly trained 
when it was a young tree-root into growing into 
the proper shape, and about forty fathoms of 
strong coconut-fibre rope — as thick as whale- 
line and as strong. Taking a flying fish, or a 
piece of the flesh of a shark caught the previous 
day, a native ties the bait around the curve of 
the great hook. Then he lowers the line, which 
sinks quickly enough, for the wooden hook is as 
heavy as it is big. Presently the line tautens — 
Jack is there. The steersman strikes his paddle 
into the water to bring the canoe's head round, 
the man holding the line gives it a sudden jerk 
that makes the outrigger rise a foot out of the 
water and nearly upsets the little craft, and a 
third native handles a short iron-wood club ex- 
pectantly. Perhaps, if Jack is a big fellow, he 
will obstinately refuse to turn, and make a 
strenuous effort to get away deep down into 
the blue gloom, a hundred fathoms below. 
Sometimes he does ; apparently nothing short 
of a steam-winch at the other end of the line 
would then stop him ; and so fathom by fathom 
the line descends, and the steersman and 
" clubber " look anxiously at the few fathoms 



Jack in the Atolls. 



77 



left coiled up on the outrigger platform. 
Generally, however, Jack is turned from his 
direct downward course by a sudden jerk. 
Then all hands " tail on " to the line to get 
him to the surface before he gets his head free 
again for an attempt at another dive. 

Meanwhile, every other canoe has got fast to 
a shark, and now there arises wild clamour and 
much bad language as the lines get foul, and 
canoes bang and thump against each other. 
Perhaps four or five will be in a lump, toge- 
ther with one or two sharks lashing the water 
into foam in the centre and turning over and 
over with lightning-like rapidity in the hope of 
parting the line or smashing the outrigger. 
This latter is not a nice thing to happen, and so 
the clubmen anxiously watch for a chance to 
deal each struggling brute a blow on the head. 
Often this is not easily effected, and often too it 
is not needed, for the shark may let his tail 
come within the reach of the steersman's arm, 
and a slashing blow from a heavy-backed, keen 
knife takes all the fight out of Jack — at one 
end, at any rate ; if it is only a young fish, 
however, the tail is grasped by a native and cut 
off before Jack knows that he has lost it. 



78 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



By and by those natives who are fast to a 
big feliow call out to their comrades that their 
shark is too heavy and strong to bring along- 
side and kill, and ask for an implement known 
to whalers as a " drogue " — a square piece of 
wood with a hole through the centre which, 
attached to the end of a line, gives such 
resisting power that the shark or whale 
dragging it behind him is soon exhausted. So 
the " drogue " is passed along from another 
canoe, and being made fast to the end of a small 
but strong line, the canoe is carefully hauled up 
as near as possible to savage, struggling Jack. 
At the loose end of the line is a noose, and 
watching a favourable moment as Jack lifts his 
tail out of the water, the steersman slips it over, 
and away goes line and " drogue " — the man 
who is holding on to the main line casting it all 
overboard so as to give the shark plenty of room 
to exhaust himself. In ten minutes more he is 
resigned to his fate, gives in, is clubbed in peace 
and towed ashore — that is, if his ocean prowling 
friends and relatives do not assimilate him unto 
themselves before his carcase is dragged up on 
to the reef, and skinned by the savage-eyed 
Ocean Island women. 



The Cutting off of the 
" Boydr 



IN the Sydney Gazette of August, 1809, 
there appears a notice of the arrival of the 
ship Boyd with a cargo of convicts for New 
South Wales. She had sailed from the Thames 
on March 10, 1809, and arrived in Sydney Cove 
on August 14th following. After refitting she 
left in November on her return voyage to 
England, but proceeded via New Zealand, 
having been chartered by Mr. S. Lord, of 
Sydney, to touch at the port of Whangaroa 
and load a cargo of kauri spars for the naval 
authorities at the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. 
Lord also put on board a large quantity of 
New South Wales mahogany, sealskins, oil, and 
coal for the same market, in all amounting to 
the value of ^15,000. There was among the 
other passengers " an East Indian captain named 



8o 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Burnsides, who having by industry accumulated 
a fortune of ^30,000, was on his return to end 
his days among his friends on the banks of the 
LifTey." 

For those days the Boyd was a large ship, well 
found and well armed, was owned by Mr. George 
Brown, a London merchant, and was under the 
command of Mr. John Thompson. In addition 
to her crew, she carried a large number of pas- 
sengers, bound to the Cape of Good Hope, and 
also some convict labourers, who were to be 
employed in cutting and loading the spars. Her 
European complement consisted of some seventy 
persons, and some five or six Maoris, and these 
latter, it was commonly asserted, and is believed 
to the present day, were the instigators of the 
crime, although that designation of the massacre 
is still resented by the Maoris of the present 
day, who insist that the slaughter of the Boyd 
people was but a natural and just retribution for 
the cruel flogging of a chief named Tara by the 
Europeans. 

The first particulars of the event reached 
Sydney through Mr. Alexander Berry, super- 
cargo of the ship City of Edinburgh, but his 
testimony, coming entirely from native sources, 



The Cutting off of the "Boyd." 81 



was incorrect and imperfect in many details. 
His narrative appeared in the Sydney Gazette 
some time in 1810, and also in the Edinburgh 
Miscellany. Abridged it is as follows : 

These are to certify that during our stay in this harbour 
(Bay of Islands) we had frequent reports of a ship being 
taken by the natives in the neighbouring harbour of 
Whangaroa, and that the ship's crew were killed and 
eaten. . . . Mr. Berry, in order to ascertain the truth of 
this report, accompanied by Mr. Russel and Metangatanga, 
a Maori chief, set out for Whangaroa in three armed boats 
on Sunday, December 31, 1809, and upon their arrival 
they found the miserable remains of the ship Boyd, Cap- 
tain John Thompson, which the Maoris, after stripping 
of everything of value, had burnt to the water's edge. 
They were able to rescue a boy, a woman, and two chil- 
dren, the only survivors of this shocking event, which, 
according to the most satisfactory information, was perpe- 
trated entirely under the direction of that rascal Te Pahi 
(a Maori chief who had been made much of by the then 
Governor of New South Wales). 

This unfortunate vessel, intending to load with spars, 
was taken three days after her arrival. On the day of her 
arrival she was boarded by a great number of Mowrees 
(sic), who expressed their eagerness to assist Captain 
Thompson and his crew in cutting the spars. Later on 
in the day Te Pahi arrived from Te Puna, and came on 
board. He stayed only a few minutes, but in that time 
took a keen survey of the ship, and noted the loose 
discipline maintained on board. He then quietly des- 

7 



82 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



cended into his canoe, but remained alongside the vessel 
and gave some quiet instructions to the great number of 
natives who surrounded the vessel on all sides. One by- 
one these canoes drew up alongside, and their crews, under 
the pretext of trading, gradually managed to get on board, 
and sit down upon the deck. After breakfast Captain 
Thompson ordered two boats to get ready, and left the 
ship under the guidance of a native to look for spars. 
Presently Te Pahi, with the utmost calmness, ascended to 
the deck and surveyed the scene. Satisfied that the proper 
moment had arrived for his bloody purpose, he gave the 
signal. In an instant the apparently peaceful natives, who 
had been sitting quietly upon the decks, rushed upon the 
unarmed crew, who were dispersed about the ship at their 
various employments. The greater part were massacred 
in a moment, and were no sooner knocked down by blows 
from meres (clubs) than they were cut up while still alive. 
Five or six of the crew escaped into the rigging. Te Pahi 
now having possession of the Boyd, hailed these with a 
speaking trumpet, and ordered them to unbend the sails 
and cut away the rigging and they should not be hurt. 
They complied with his commands, and then came down. 
He then took them ashore, and afterwards killed them, 
The master, who had gone ashore unarmed, was easily 
despatched. 

The names of the survivors are : Mrs. Nanny Morley 
and child, Betsy Broughton, and Thomas Davis (boy). 
The natives of the spar district of this harbour (Kororareka, 
Bay of Islands), have behaved well, even beyond expecta- 
tion, and seem much concerned on account of the un- 
fortunate event ; and dreading the displeasure of King 



The Cutting off of the "Boyd" 83 



George, have requested certificates or their good conduct 
in order to exempt them from his vengeance. But let no 
man after this trust a New Zealander. 

Simeon Pateson, Master. 

Alex Berry, Supercargo. 

James Russell, Mate. 
Ship City of Edinburgh, Bay of Islands, January 6, 1810. 

Not long after this Captain Chase, of the 
Governor Bligh> was able to obtain further 
particulars from a native of Tahiti, who was 
one of the Boyd's crew, and had probably been 
spared on account of his colour. According 
to this man's account, which appears to be 
authentic, the captain was accompanied by 
the chief mate, and three, not two, boats 
were manned to get the spars on board. Among 
those who were with the landing party were the 
six Maori seamen from the Boyd. These were 
the men whom it is alleged that Captain Thomp- 
son ill-treated. (Nothing definite to this effect 
seems to have been proved.) The boats were 
conducted to a river, on entering which they 
were out of sight of the ship ; and after pro- 
ceeding some distance up, Captain Thompson 
was invited to land and mark the trees he 
wanted. The boats landed accordingly, the 



8 4 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



tide being then beginning to ebb, and the crews 
followed to assist in the work. The guides led 
the party through various paths that were least 
likely to answer the desired end, thus delaying 
the premeditated attack until the boats should 
be left high and dry, and the unfortunate crews 
unable to escape. This part of their horrible 
plan accomplished, the natives became very 
insolent and rude, ironically pointing at decayed 
fragments of trees and inquiring of Captain 
Thompson whether such would suit his purpose 
or not. And then the Maori seamen of the 
Boyd threw off the mask, and in opprobrious 
terms upbraided him with their maltreatment on 
board, informing him at the same time that he 
should have no spars there but what he could cut 
and carry away himself. Captain Thompson, 
apparently caring nothing for the disappoint- 
ment, turned carelessly away with his people 
towards the boats, and at this moment they 
were savagely assaulted with clubs and axes, 
which the assailants had until then concealed 
under their dresses, and, although the boats' 
crews had several muskets, yet so impetuous 
was the attack that every man was slaughtered 
before one could be used. 



The Cutting off of the " Boyd" 85 



This dreadful deed accomplished, the bodies 
of Captain Thompson and his unfortunate men 
were cut up, cooked, and devoured by the 
murderers, who, clothing themselves with their 
victims' apparel, launched the boats and pro- 
ceeded towards the ship, which they determined 
to attack. It being very dark before they reached 
her, and no suspicion being entertained of what 
had happened, the second officer hailed the 
boats, and was answered by the villains who had 
occasioned the disaster, that the captain having 
chosen to remain with his men on shore that 
night for the purpose of viewing the country, 
had ordered them to take on board such spars 
as had already been procured. 

Satisfied with this, the second mate ordered 
the boats to come alongside, and stood in the 
gangway as the first of the natives ascended 
the ship's side. In an instant his brains were 
dashed out with a mere, or jade club, and then 
all the seamen of the watch on deck were in like 
manner surprised and murdered. Some of the 
assassins then went down to the cabin door, and 
asked the passengers and others to go on deck 
and look at the boat load of spars. An un- 
fortunate female passenger was the first to open 



86 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



her door and come out, and the moment she 
ascended the companion she was cut down. 
The noise occasioned by her fall alarmed the 
people that were in bed, who, running on deck 
in disorder, were all killed as they went up the 
companion, except four or five who ran up the 
rigging and remained there till daylight. 

The next morning Te Pahi appeared along- 
side in a canoe, and was much offended at what 
had happened, but was not permitted to inter- 
fere or remain near the ship. The unfortunate 
men in the rigging called to him and implored 
his protection, of which he assured them if 
they could make their way to his canoe. This 
they at last succeeded in doing, and, although 
threatened by the other Maoris, the old man 
landed the white men on the nearest point. 
But the moment they reached the shore they 
were surrounded, and Te Pahi was forcibly held 
while the murder of the unhappy fugitives was 
perpetrated. 

Te Pahi, however, who was a chief of great 
renown, was afterwards permitted by the people 
of Whangaroa to take three boatloads of any 
property he chose out of the ship, firearms and 
gunpowder excepted, and the bulk they divided 



The Cutting off of the " Boy J" 87 



among themselves. The salt provisions, flour, 
and spirits they threw overboard, considering 
them useless. The muskets they prized very 
much, and one of the savages, in his eagerness 
to try one, stove in the head of a barrel of gun- 
powder, and filling the pan of the piece snapped 
it directly over the cask ! In an instant the 
powder exploded, and killed five native women 
and nine men, and set the ship on fire. Her 
cables were then cut, and she was allowed to 
drift ashore. 

Of the rescued survivors of this dreadful 
massacre, Mrs. Morley died ten months later at 
Valparaiso ; her child, when grown to woman- 
hood, kept a school in Sydney. Miss Broughton 
became Mrs. Charles Throsby, of Sydney ; and 
Davis, the boy, was drowned at Shoalhaven in 
the colony of New South Wales, in May, 1822. 
And to-day, when the tide is low, the brown- 
skinned descendants of the Maoris who cut off 
the ill-fated Boyd will show you her weed- 
covered timbers protruding from the mud — 
silent witnesses of one of the many tragedies 
of the Southern Seas. 



My Native Servants. 



I HAD just said good-bye to the captain of 
the trading vessel that had landed me on 
Niue (Savage Island), and was watching her 
getting under way, when I saw that a deputation 
of the leading villagers was awaiting me at the 
top of the rugged path that led to my dwelling. 
Seeing among them several of the people who 
had been assisting the ship's crew to carry my 
goods up to the house, I concluded they were 
waiting to tell me the usual native story of 
having individually and collectively strained 
their backs by lifting cases of tinned beef, and 
demand another dollar each. 

I was mistaken. Soseni, the spokesman, 
stepped out and said that he and the deputa- 
tion, representing as they did the public voice 
of Avatele village, respectfully desired to warn 

88 



My Native Servants. 89 

me against engaging any strangers from Aloft as 
domestics. They did not want to damage any 
one's reputation, bu£ the Alofi folk were a bad 
lot. Certainly there were some who were honest 
— people who originally belonged to Avatele, 
and 

I said I would not decide just then. I should 
wait till I had settled down a bit. At present, 
however, I added, old Lupo's son, Moemoe, 
would cook for me. 

The deputation seemed annoyed, and Soseni 
said they were sorry for me. Lupo was a very 
good man, and although a Samoan, was an 
esteemed fellow-townsman and a deacon as 
well ; also he had married a Niue woman, which 
was in his favour. But his sons were two 
notoriously improper young men (applause) ; 
their mother, while of spotless morals, was a 
confirmed cadger and a public wrangler and 
shrew. As for the daughters — well, I could 
look at their record any time in the fakafiilts 
(judge's) charge-book. 

I thanked the deputation for their goodwill, 
and said that while I would not decide hastily 
in reference to other servants, I quite intended 
keeping Moemoe as my cook. I had, I said, 



9° 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



known old Lupo for many years, and long ago 
promised him that if ever I came to Savage 
Island I would take some of his family into 
my service. 

" Thank you very much," said the polite 
Soseni, speaking in English, and then he and 
his friends bade me good-day, and somewhat 
hurriedly left me. (I learnt half an hour after- 
wards that they at once called an emergency 
meeting of the town council, and passed a law 
that no member of Lupo's family but Moemoe 
was to take service with the new white man 
under any excuse ; also that if any of Moemoe's 
relatives were seen hanging about the premises 
on the look-out for a job the general public 
were at liberty to stone them.) 

Just as I reached the gate leading to the 
house I heard angry voices from the back ; then 
followed the sound of blows, accompanied by 
much bad language, and presently three men 
and four women rushed down the path, pursued 
by a hundred or so of people of both sexes, 
who assailed the fugitives with showers of 
stones. Old Lupo came out to meet me. 

4 'What is all this row, Lupo?" Lupo 
smiled pleasantly and said it was nothing — 



My Native Servants. 



9 1 



" only some man and womans, sir, from Alofi. 
They wanted to come inside and talk to you 
about getting some servants from their town. 
And this made the Avatele people cross ; yes, 
sir, very cross. So they threw some stone at 
them." (I must mention that Lupo always 
spoke English to white men, and to address 
him in the native tongue was a sore affront.) 

" Oh, I see. Well, I'm very hungry ; is my 
supper ready ? And, I say, Lupo, don't let any 
more people in to-day to talk about servants." 

" All right, sir," he replied somewhat uneasily. 

I heaved a contented sigh as I mounted the 
verandah steps, for the day had been one of 
toil, and I was eager to rest a little before 
supper. My little daughter was already asleep 
in a fellow trader's house near by, worn out 
with the excitement of her novel surroundings. 
I stepped into the big sitting-room of my new 
abode, and there, sitting on the floor in solemn 
silence with their backs to the wall, were about 
fifty women. They all smiled pleasantly at me 
as I entered, and then all began to talk at once : 
each one wanted to be nurse to the tama-fafine- 
toatsi (little girl). 

" Here, I say, Lupo, clear all these women 



92 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

out of this, What do they want swarming into 
the place like this ? Tell them that I won't talk 
about servants till to-morrow morning. And, 
besides that, I want to eat my supper, and I can't 
eat it with fifty women staring at me in a circle." 

Old Lupo stroked his bald brown head and 
coughed apologetically. " If you please, sir, 
these Niue womans all very much want to 
know who you going to get for nurse-woman 
for your little girl." 

On my refusing, with some warmth, to dis- 
cuss the matter with them at that moment, and 
requesting them to clear out, they unanimously 
stated that I was the worst and most ill- 
mannered white man they had ever seen ; 
furthermore, that if I engaged a single servant, 
male or female, from any other village than 
Avatele, the blood of that person would be on 
my head. However, they would, they said, 
come again in the morning with some friends 
and talk the matter over with me. 

A few weeks later, my trading colleague, who 
lived ten miles away on the other side of the 
island, came along to see how I was getting on. 
He had heard that there was some ill-feeling 



My Native Servants, 



93 



among the various villages about my servants, 
and thought he might advise me, as I was a 
stranger to Niue people. I fell upon his neck 
and wept down his back, and told him that my 
servants had got possession of me ; I seemed to 
have engaged the whole village. 

That confounded young ruffian Moemoe was 
the worst. He was a tall, well-built youth of 
nineteen, with a pale olive complexion and big, 
dreamy eyes that looked soulfully out from the 
black glossy curls which fell about his forehead. 
He turned up on the first day dressed in a 
white duck suit and canvas shoes, and with 
scarlet hibiscus flowers stuck through his curls, 
one over each ear. He seemed a clean, intelli- 
gent lad, but a bit languid, and said he would 
be content with five dols. per month ; also that 
he could make bread. I at once took him over 
to the detached kitchen, unlocked the door, 
showed him that all the necessary utensils used 
by my predecessor were there and in good 
order, and told him to come to me for kitchen 
stores. He said, " All right," sat down on a 
stool and, asking me for my tobacco pouch, 
began to fill his pipe. Thinking that he 



94 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



probably wanted to meditate a while on the 
responsibilities of his position, I withdrew. 

Hakala, the senior nurse, had been strongly 
recommended to me by Captain Packenham as 
a most excellent and deserving woman ; and, 
more than that, as the widow of a white man 
who had been hanged in Queensland. She was 
a pleasant-looking, smiling-eyed woman of 
about forty, with her long hair dressed a la 
Suisse ; and although she could not speak a 
word of English, I felt sure my little girl 
would like her. Besides that she was a widow, 
and who can resist the claims of the widow 
upon our pity ? I could not. And presently 
my daughter ran out to her and put out her arms 
to be lifted up. The woman's eyes sparkled 
and danced with pleasure, her brown cheeks 
dimpled, and a soft, cooing, mother-like laugh 
gently shook her ample bosom, and then sub- 
sided into an endearing, whispering tuk> tuk^ tuk 
— just the sweet, crooing sound a mother hen 
makes as her chicks cuddle up beneath her 
loving wing. And because of this, and of her 
widowhood, I gave Hakala the billet of boss 
nurse. (She entered on her duties at *once, and 
when night came she lay down upon her couch 



My Native Servants. 



95 



of mats just under my youngster's bed. About 
midnight I looked in and saw that two native 
children lay one on each side of her. I 
awakened her, and asked her what she meant, 
bringing native children in the bedroom. 

" They are mine," she said with a smile. 

" Why," I said, angrily, " Captain Packenham 
said you had no children." 

" Only native children, sir. I be married 
again now. My husband comes here to-morrow 
to live with me. He is a good man and says 
he will help Moemoe to make bread for you.") 

The next morning I engaged all the servants 
I wanted, but had a lot of opposition from the 
town councillors because I selected a washer- 
woman from Alofi, a rough carpenter from 
another coast village called Fatiau, and a second 
nurse, or rather nursemaid, from a bush town 
called Hakupu. She was quite a young thing, 
and promised faithfully never to let the little 
white girl out of her sight for a moment during 
her walks. Her name was E'eu. But, so as 
not to cause too much ill-feeling and jealousy 
among the Avatele people by the inclusion of 
too many strangers, the whole of the labourers, 
male and female, that it was necessary for me to 



g6 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

employ about the station were residents of the 
village. This seemed to satisfy the authorities 
and all promised well. 

At noon I went out to the cookhouse to see 
how my chef was getting on. He had taken 
off his coat and shirt, but was still sitting down, 
playing an accordion to an audience of a dozen 
young women, all more or less in a state of 
deshabille — even for Niue women. They fled 
wildly the moment I appeared. 

" Moemoe, who are those girls ? Why did 
you let them come in here ? " 

Oh, they were cousins of his, he said, and 
had come to see him make bread. And he 
wanted to begin work at once. And would I 
mind if some of the girls helped him in the 
kitchen ? Minea was good at cleaning knives, 
Toria wanted to mend a hole in the floor mat, 
Kahe said she would like to help him peel the 
yams and taro, and Talamaheke — the girl with 
the wreath of orange blossoms — wanted to wash 
up the plates ; the others were willing to make 
themselves generally useful. Here he was 
interrupted by a face, apparently his double, 
appearing at the kitchen window, and the angry 
exclamation of " Liar ! " 



My Native Servants, 



97 



"Do not heed him" said my chef, com- 
posedly ; " that my brother, and he very 
jealous of me. He thinks he can make bread." 

I warned the intruding brother off the 
premises, and was just halfway across the grassy 
sward that separated the kitchen from the 
dwelling-house, when I heard loud feminine 
yells, and cries for me to come quickly. Rush- 
ing into the big sitting-room a pretty scene was 
revealed. Hakala, the head nurse, valiantly 
assisted by the pretty E'eu, was engaged in 
deadly combat with two other women who were 
apparently endeavouring to tear her hair out by 
the roots. My infant daughter was standing 
on the table, her shrieks of terror only seeming 
to nerve the combatants to greater efforts to 
destroy one another. Seizing a canoe paddle 
from a fat, burly native who stood at the door 
applauding the struggle, I belaboured the bare 
legs of the intruders with such effect that both 
women dropped upon the matted floor and 
contented themselves with hurling opprobrious 
epithets at Hakala, and promising to come 
again later on. In a few moments the house 
was filled with natives, and an animated dis- 
cussion took place as to who were the 

8 



9 8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



aggressors. Then Soseni came to my assist- 
ance, and, by banging right and left, he with a 
heavy stick and I with my paddle, we managed 
to clear the room. Then we learned that the 
fight arose in a very simple manner. Hakala 
had been giving her charge something to eat, 
when she was perceived by the two women 
from outside the station fence, who told her 
she was not fit to take charge of a pig, let 
alone a child — and that a white child. This 
she very properly resented. 

During the day several minor fights arose 
out of trifling matters. The native teacher, 
accompanied by his daughter, a huge mass 
of adipose tissue, named Pepe (The Butterfly), 
solicited an interview with me. The reverend 
gentleman said he did not want to harrow 
my feelings, but — well, he would let his 
daughter speak. And she spoke. She said 
that I ought to know that the girl E'eu, who 
had part charge of my " beautiful, sweet little 
bird," was a sinner of the worst description. 
Did I know that she (E'eu) had been turned out 
of Sunday School for dancing heathen dances 
with some other girls one moonlight night ? 
I said that did not matter to me. She said that 



My Native Servants. 



99 



it would not be good for my child to be taught 
such things. She herself was a proper girl, and 
hated wicked and immodest people, like this 
E'eu. At this my native carpenter, who was 
working near by, mending a window, laughed 
derisively, and Pepe's papa asked him what he 
meant. He replied by making the assertion 
that Pepe was the giddiest girl in Niue. 

" How dare you say that, you pig ! " demanded 
the minister ; and then, turning to me, " This 
man is a very evil-hearted person. He it was 
who stole the handkerchief of Commodore 
Goodenough ten years ago." And then the 
graceful E'eu appeared at the doorway, carrying 
my infant. In an instant she placed the child 
in the carpenter's arms, and then flew at the 
monstrous Pepe like a tiger-cat. We — the 
teacher and myself — managed to separate them 
after they had bitten each other savagely. 

Later on in the afternoon the washerwoman 
from Alofi came to me to have her head dressed 
with sticking-plaster : an Avatele woman had 
struck her on the temple with a stone. After 
this matters settled down a bit. 

Two weeks later, E'eu, big-eyed, red-lipped, 



100 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



and lithe-limbed, asked me if she could take 
my little girl for a walk to a village called 
Tamakautoga. " There be people of mine own 
blood there, master. And they hunger to see 
this little child of thine. And I shall be careful 
that she eateth none of those things of which 
thou hast warned me — pork, or cold taro, or 
baked fete (octopus), or guavas, or raw fish." 

I saw her lead my little one away under the 
long, palm-shaded path that led to Tamakautoga, 
and, having nothing to do in particular, went to 
the house of a trader near by for a smoke and 
a chat. From his verandah we commanded a 
view of the line of reef that stood out like a 
shelf from the precipitous shore of the island. 
The tide was half-ebbed, but the rolling ocean 
billows dashed unceasingly against the steep face 
of the reef and sent great seething sheets of 
roaring foam sweeping shoreward over the 
surface of the coral table. Yet all along the 
edge of the reef were numbers of women fishing 
with rods. Sometimes, when a roller too big to 
withstand rose and curled its greeny crest fiercely 
before them, the women would run landward a 
hundred feet or so, and let it sweep by them 
waist high. Then they would hurry back to 



My Native Servants, 



101 



the face of the reef and drop their lines into 
the sea again. At one place, where the curve 
of the reef broke the first force of the rushing 
seas, were gathered some dozen or so of young 
girls, all standing up to their waists in the 
troubled surf, catching a species of small rock 
cod that came in with the rising tide, and 
dropping them into the baskets carried on their 
naked backs. Every now and then, however, 
a wavering, leaping wall of backwash from the 
shore would make them spring for safety upon 
the round, isolated knobs of coral that here and 
there studded the ledge on which they stood. 
For any one of them to lose her footing meant 
being carried out by the backwash over the edge 
of the reef, and, if not drowned, being severely 
lacerated by the jagged coral. My friend and 
I sat looking at them for some time, when pre- 
sently he said : 

" Look at that girl right on the very edge — 
the one with the big bundle on her back. She'll 
get knocked over by the next sea to a dead 
certainty. By jove, it's a child she's carrying. 
Man, it's your youngster ! " 

In another moment we tore down the rocky 
path, and plunging into the water, ran along 



102 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the reef, falling into holes every now and then, 
and clambering out again, half-drowned. The 
group of girls saw us coming, and gave the 
wicked E'eu a warning cry. She turned, and at 
once made off for the shore, making a detour to 
avoid the vengeance she knew was coming. She 
gained the beach first, barefooted as she was, and, 
dropping her rod, sprang up the path like a 
goat. My child, I saw, was strapped tightly 
upon her carrier's back by two cross-belts of 
gretnfau bark, which came up under her (E'eu's) 
armpits and met across her naked bosom. That 
the infant was drenched through and through 
I could see, for her white linen sun-bonnet 
hung flat and limp over her little head. 

We stopped to break off a couple of stout 
switches and started in pursuit, reaching my 
door just as E'eu darted into the inner room 
to disencumber herself of her burden. 

Two minutes later we haled her out on to 
the sward, and Hakala gave her a beating that 
she will remember to the end of her life. This 
sounds brutal, but it was the only way of making 
her understand the nature of the shock my 
parental feelings had sustained ; a cuff or two 
would have done more harm than good. Half 



My Native Servants. 103 

an hour later the town councillors deputationised 
me again, and suggested that I should invest 
E'eu with the order of the sack and replace her 
with Pepe. I said I would give her another 
week's trial. After the deputation had left I 
told Hakala to bring E'eu into the house, so 
that while she was still feeling the effects of her 
whipping I might impress upon her youthful 
mind the enormity of her conduct. But she 
could not be found. Presently, however, we 
heard the murmur of voices from the cookhouse. 
Walking softly over, I peeped in through the 
window. The place was in semi-darkness, but 
there was still enough light to fill me with 
wrath at what I saw. There, stretched upon 
the floor, face down, was the under-nurse, 
supporting her chin upon her hands, a cigarette 
in her mouth, and that villain of a Moemoe 
lubricating her glossy brown back with a freshly- 
opened tin of my Danish butter, into which he 
now and again thrust his fingers. The extreme 
annoyance I manifested seemed to astonish Moe- 
moe, who protested that he had used but very 
little butter, and Hakala had refused to lend 
him her bottle of scented hair-oil. 

But all these were minor troubles. Every 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



day people — principally women and girls — from 
Fatiau, and Hakupu, and Aloft came outside 
my compound wall and challenged my female 
domestics severally and collectively to come out 
and fight ; and thereby made my life a misery. 
Pepe the Rejected was, I think, the instigator, 
and at last I had to compromise matters with 
her by presenting her with a cheap concertina 
and a tin of salmon. After that the personal 
assaults ceased, and the opposing forces merely 
indulged in vituperative language across the 
compound wall. 



Gente Hermosa : the Isla?2cl of 
" Beautiful People" 

LONG, long ago, when Fernando Quiros, 
the Spanish pilot, sailed among the 
islands of the great unknown South Sea, his 
ship touched at a small, low-lying island, 
densely covered with groves of palm trees which 
grew to the very verge of the bright, shining 
beaches of snow-white sand that encircled them 
like a belt of ivory. This island was inhabited 
by a race of light copper-coloured natives of 
" gentle demeanor and very great beauty of 
person;" in fact so ravishingly beautiful were 
many of the females who boarded the ship that 
Quiros, in the chart he sent home to his royal 
master in Spain, named the island " Gente 
Hermosa" — handsome or beautiful people. 
There is much doubt, however, that the Gente 

Hermosa of Quiros is the Gente Hermosa (now 

105 



io6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



called Quiros Island or Swain's Island of our 
modern charts) of his voyage with Torres, 
situated about a day's sail northward from 
Samoa. That is but a tiny coral gem about 
three miles broad and one in width, and 
containing less than 3,000 acres, for the centre 
is taken up by a shallow, salt water lagoon. 
But though so small this lovely little isle has an 
interesting history, which, however, need not be 
told here, its name being only mentioned lest it 
might be imagined that it is the island of 
" beautiful people " spoken of by Torquemada, 
the historian of the voyage of Quiros. The 
true Gente Hermosa is some distance from there 
— in 10 deg. 2 min. south, and 161 deg. 10 
min. west (while the Gente Hermosa or Swain's 
Island of the modern charts is in 11 deg. 10 
min. south and 170 deg. 56 min. west) is called 
Rakahaaga, and lies about twenty miles N.N. W. 
of the beautiful island of Manhiki, one of the 
loveliest spots in the Pacific. The late Major 
Sterndale, than whom there was no better 
authority upon the manners, language, and mode 
of life generally of the Malayo-Polynesian race, 
spent a considerable portion of his time during 
his island wanderings on Rakahaaga, and know- 



Gente Hermosa. 



107 



ing both it and the Gente Hermosa of the charts 
equally well, gave it as his opinion that Quiros 
had assigned Rakahaaga a wrong position on 
the chart he sent home to Spain. In the first 
place Rakahaaga has always, or at least 
within the last 200 years, carried a population 
of over 500 people, while Swain's Island was 
uninhabited up to within fifty years ago, and 
although there were found a few stone hatchets 
which showed human occupancy at some long 
past time, there were no signs of the great 
depressions and high banks resulting from the 
construction of artificial swamps for the cultiva- 
tion of taro. The presence of these certainly 
would have proved that the island had sustained 
a permanent population, even though they had 
died out or been killed a hundred years back. 
It is, therefore, very evident from this fact 
alone that the old cartographers of Quiros's 
voyage were in error, and that the island of 
" beautiful people " was the now well-known 
Rakahaaga. 

At the present time the population is something 
over 500. Fifty years ago, when it was visited 
yearly by many ships of the American whaling 
fleet, there were, it is said, over 3,000 natives 



io8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



in Rakahaaga and Manhiki. The steady and 
lamentable decrease in their numbers is ascribed 
by the missionaries as being the result of their 
intercourse with the seamen of the whaling fleet, 
and from the fact that the women of both 
Manhiki and Rakahaaga were much sought 
after by wandering white traders from all parts 
of the North and South Pacific ; but Captain 
English, of Fanning's Island, and Major Stern- 
dale, both able authorities, ascribe their 
decadence to the introduction of European 
clothing by the missionaries, which, as in 
numberless other instances in the annals of 
missionary enterprise in Polynesia, was attended 
by the most disastrous results. By some incom- 
prehensible fatuity, the earlier missionaries in 
the Pacific were imbued with the idea that these 
people, who for centuries had worn nothing 
beyond a girdle or waist-cloth of native 
manufacture, could at once adapt their constitu- 
tions to such a violent and radical change as 
that caused by their clothing themselves in 
heavy woollen garments sent out from England 
by those interested in the spread of the Gospel. 
Not even the fearful consequences that attended 
the clothing of the people of Raratonga early in 



Gente Hermosa. 



the present century by the enthusiast Williams 
could teach them sense in this respect ; and the 
natives themselves, though now accustomed to 
the use of European costume from their earliest 
childhood, assert that the ravages of pulmonary 
disease, to which they are particularly liable, 
first began to decimate them after they accepted 
Christianity. 

Without doubt the Rakahaaga natives may 
claim to be one of the handsomest races in 
Polynesia. Their complexion is very light, and 
their smooth, glossy skins are not now disfigured 
by tattooing, except in the cases of the men, 
who have been tattooed at other islands when 
voyaging about the Pacific in whaleships. The 
younger women and girls are perfect models of 
symmetry of form, and their large dark and 
languishing eyes, oval faces and pearly teeth, and 
rosy flush of cheek under their clear skin, at 
once give reason for their being so sought after 
as wives by the old-time traders. In their 
dispositions they are bright and cheerful, and 
both men and women seem passionately devoted 
to children, and mingle with them in their 
childish games in a manner that at once 
impresses the beholder with a very high estimate 



I IO 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



of their gentleness and amiability. The men 
are all expert divers, and many of them display 
great skill in various handicrafts, such as 
carpentering, boat and house building, etc. For 
their knowledge of such they are indebted to 
Captain John English, a veteran and honoured 
old trader, who, looking for suitable labourers 
to work at his coconut oil manufactory of 
Fanning's Island in i860, visited Rakahaaga 
and Manhiki and took some hundreds of them 
away with him to that isolated atoll. The 
aptitude they displayed in learning the arts of 
civilisation was truly wonderful, and the old 
captain took a natural and sincere pride in his 
pupils, and on their return to their home some 
three years later they effected a radical change in 
the condition of their fellow-countrymen by teach- 
ing them all the knowledge they had acquired 
during their sojourn with the old sailor. 

The houses are built of coralline, and are 
constructed in a neat and substantial manner. 
Each dwelling is enclosed within a low wall of 
plastered coral stone and sand, and most have 
European doors and windows, constructed from 
native or imported timbers by the people them- 
selves. The floors are covered with beautifully 



Gente Hermosa. 



1 1 1 



worked mats of handsome design and fine 
texture, and in some of the dwellings of the 
better-off people may be seen good European- 
made furniture, such as chests of drawers, etc. 
Of late years the adoption of European clothing 
has become general with both sexes ; but the 
black suits, chimney-pot hats, and Sarah Gampian 
umbrellas of the early missionary days have 
very sensibly been discarded for clothing of 
a lighter texture, supplied by the resident trader 
at Manhiki, and the occasional trading vessels 
that visit the two islands. They are all 
Christians, and, so far as outward observances 
go, could be, and indeed are, held up by the 
missionaries as bright and shining examples of 
the beneficent results attending the introduction 
of Christianity. But, like too many such island 
communities, their Christianity is but a garment 
to be put off and on at their own convenience ; 
yet despite this they are on the whole an 
amiable, interesting, and well-mannered people. 
Contrasting their condition of peace and plenty 
with that of so many thousands of English 
labourers and artisans of the present day, one 
cannot but envy their happy and contented 
existence. 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 



WITH the exception of the coast of New 
Zealand I do not think that there can 
be better deep-sea fishing grounds in the whole 
Pacific than the calm waters encompassing the 
many belts and clusters of the low-lying coral 
islands of Polynesia. Unlike the fortunate 
inhabitants of such mountainous but highly 
fertile groups as Samoa, the Society, Cook's, 
and Austral Islands, the people of these low, 
sandy atolls literally depend upon the sea for 
their existence ; for, beyond coconuts, the 
drupes of the pandanus palm, and a coarse 
vegetable called puraka (a species of gigantic 
taro), they have little else but fish to 
support existence. The result of these con- 
ditions is that they are very expert fishermen 
and divers, and the writer, during a twenty-six 

112 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 1 1 3 



years' experience of the Pacific Islands, was 
often lost in admiring wonder at their skill, 
courage, and resourcefulness in the exercise of 
their daily task of fishing, either in shallow 
water within the reef, or miles away from the 
land on the darkest nights, and using tackle of 
such weight, size, and peculiar construction 
that the uninitiated beholder imagines he is 
living in the age of primeval man. 

Flying-fish catching is, perhaps, the most 
exciting and exhilarating of all South Sea 
Islands' fishing. There are many methods ; for 
they are caught both by day and night. In the 
Gilbert and Kingsmill Islands, lately annexed 
by Great Britain, their capture by day is 
effected by thin lines trailed astern by sailing 
canoes, and at night by the aid of torches with 
nets. In this latter manner, however, the 
light-skinned inhabitants of the Ellice Islands 
surpass their northern neighbours of the 
Gilberts. Let us imagine that just about sun- 
set we are on one of the low-lying islands of 
the former group. The mission bell, or rather 
the wooden cylinder that does duty for such, 
has been rung for evening prayers. The even- 
ing is calm and quiet, and the smooth sea gives 

9 



ii4 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



promise of a good night's sport, so the prayers 
are hurried through as quickly as possible, 
loane, the Samoan teacher, is an ardent fisher- 
man himself, and the moment prayers are over 
he whips off his white shirt and pants, and ties 
a titi, or girdle of leaves, around his loins. 
Outside, and all along the white beach, numbers 
of men, women, and girls are hurrying to and 
fro, getting the canoes ready. Upon the frame- 
work of each outrigger is placed a bundle of 
huge torches made of the dried leaves of the 
coconut palm. These torches are from 6ft. to 
i oft. in length, and are very easily and rapidly 
made by the women. So that they may not 
be wetted by a sea breaking over them as the 
canoe crosses the reef, they are covered over 
with a coarse mat of coconut leaves, called a 
kapau. Each canoe takes four, or at the 
outside five men, two to paddle, one to steer, 
one to act as torch-bearer, and another to wield 
the scoop-net. All being in readiness, the 
canoes are lifted up, carried into the water, and 
the fishermen take their places in them, paddles 
in hand. Sometimes there are — even on little 
Nanomaga, one of the Ellice Islands, and which 
has only a population of 400 souls — as many as 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia, 1 1 5 



thirty or forty canoes engaged. Watching for 
a favourable opportunity, when a lull occurs in 
the break of the surf on the reef, the paddles 
are struck into the water, and the little fleet 
dash over into the deep water beyond. Upon 
each outrigger gleams a tiny spark of red fire. 
This is from a small torch made of the split 
spathe of the coconut, and is used to ignite 
the larger torches at the fitting moment. 

The utmost silence prevails. Pipes are lit, 
and then a whispered consultation takes place. 
The fleet divides itself, one portion paddling 
slowly along the reef towards the south end of 
the island, and the other to the north. In a 
quarter of an hour each party has reached the 
position assigned to it. They are to work 
towards each other. Every now and then a 
flying-fish leaps out of the water and flies away 
into the encompassing darkness, to fall with a 
splash hundreds of feet off. At last the canoes 
are in line, forming a semi-circle. 

Ta / (" Light up ") is the steersman's 
whispered order. 

The man who has hitherto paddled amidships 
lays his paddle down quietly and stands up, one 
foot on each gunwale, and a torch is passed up 



n6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



to him. Thrusting the burning end of the 
smaller torch into the crisp dry leaves, he blows 
steadily for a moment or two till they burst out 
into flame, and at the same instant from twenty 
other canoes a glare of light illuminates the ocean. 

The moment the big torch is lit a native 
takes up his position in the bows. He holds in 
his hands a light pole of pua wood about 14ft. 
in length, to one end of which is attached a 
round scoop-net stretched upon thin bent wood. 

By this time all the torches are burning 
bravely, and the canoes advance. The bright 
flame reveals the surface of the water so clearly 
that the smallest speck upon its surface can be 
discerned. A quarter of a mile away on the 
starboard hand the white line of breakers rear 
and tumble upon the jagged ledges of black 
reef ; beyond lies the dim line of beach fringed 
by the long line of sleeping palms. 

Presently the torchbearer of one of the 
canoes on the seaward horn of the crescent 
gives a warning " hist ! " and, giving his torch a 
shake, a shower of sparks fall. The flames 
burst out brighter than ever, and, as every 
other torchholder follows his example, the 
paddlers and steersmen look over the side and 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 



117 



the men forward hold their nets in readiness, 
and their keen eyes search the water ahead and 
on each side of them. In another moment the 
canoes are in among a swarm of flying-fish, 
lying almost motionless upon the surface, 
dazzled by the blinding light. 

With quick, lightning-like sweep, the man 
forward darts his scoop upon the water, and, 
swiftly reversing it, raises it again, and a cry of 
triumph escapes him. Mate (struck ! ) he cries. 
Inside the netting there is a gleam of burnished 
silver and blue, and, with a deft sweep, round 
comes the scoop, and half-a-dozen fish are 
dropped into the after part of the canoe, 
where they lie beating out their lives with 
outstretched fins and quivering tails. 

There is no need for silence now, and shouts 
and cries of emulation from one canoe to 
another reach the ears of the women on shore, 
who call out in return. Splash, splash, and 
the deadly scoops sweep up the fish which lie 
grouped together in dozens, and then, realising 
at last the fate that awaits them in that fierce, 
strange light, they leap and fly hither and 
thither in every direction, and seek refuge in 
the darkness. 



n8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Then, as if by magic, the sea is dark again, 
and in place of the loud laughter and shouts, a 
sudden silence. Every torch is out, the paddles 
are taken up again, and for a few minutes the 
canoes paddle quietly along with noiseless 
stroke. Away towards the northern end of 
the land a bright circle of lights appear, and 
faint cries are borne across the water as the 
other half of the fleet plies its scoops among 
the fish. Another ten minutes pass, arid then 
again the torches of the southern fleet flame 
out, and the scoops strike the water and swirl 
about ahead, astern, and on each side. At last 
the leading man calls out : 

" It is enough, friends. Our canoe is half 
filled. How is it with thee ? " 

" Enough, enough ! Let us now fish for 
tau-tau" 

So off they paddle shoreward, where the 
waiting women meet them on the beach, and 
fill their baskets with flying-fish. Then, keep- 
ing perhaps twenty or so for bait, each canoe 
once more paddles out into the darkness to fish 
for tau-tau, palu, and takuo till the morning. 

Let me attempt to describe what these fish 
are like, and the method in use for catching them. 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 



119 



The tau-tau is exactly like an English salmon 
as far as appearance goes, save that the entire 
head is formed of a series of hard, long plates, 
and the jaws are fitted with teeth that resemble 
those of a rip-saw. The palu is caught only 
in deep water and varies from 2ft. to 6ft. in 
length. It has a dark brown skin, is scaleless, 
but covered with minute horny projections that 
curve outward and backward like the feathers 
of a French fowl. Its flesh is greatly relished 
by the natives, both as a food and for its highly 
medicinal qualities in some complaints. It is, 
however, of such an oleaginous character that it 
is only eaten alone when needed as a purgative ; 
generally it is mixed with beaten-up puraka, 
and is very palatable, even to European tastes. 

The takuo is a species of gigantic albicore, and 
I have caught them in both the Caroline and 
Marshall Groups in the North- West Pacific up 
to i2olb. weight. Like the palu and tau-tau, it 
is of semi-nocturnal habits, and is seldom caught 
but just before the dawn, or an hour or so 
before sunset. 

Preying as they do unceasingly upon the 
swarms of flying fish that hover about the coral 
reefs of the Equatorial Islands, the tau-tau are 



120 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



themselves preyed upon by a fish of immense 
size, called the pala — a fish quite distinct from 
the palu, for it is surface-loving and is never 
caught at night. These sometimes attain a 
length of 7ft., but in girth they are com- 
paratively slender. In consequence of their 
flesh being somewhat coarse, they are not as 
much esteemed by the natives as the tau-tau, 
and in times of fish-plenty are seldom captured. 
They are a beautifully coloured fish, with dark 
blue backs, and sides of silvery grey, and in 
shape exactly resemble the English mackerel. 
The head is like that of the tau-tau — a series 
of hard bone-plates — and the jaws, which in a 
full-grown fish are a foot in length, are armed 
with a single row of terribly sharp, saw-like 
teeth, capable of severing a man's arm as easily 
as if it were struck off by a blow from an axe. 

The natives of the little island of Nanomaga, 
in the Ellice Group, six hundred miles from 
Samoa, are famous for the skill they display in 
pala fishing, which is of a very exciting nature, 
on account of the great strength and swiftness 
of even a moderately-sized fish. The tackle 
employed is made of four-plait coconut cinnet, 
and the hook used is always of European make 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 



121 



— generally a small shark hook, purchased from 
the local white trader. If the shank of the 
hook is not of sufficient length, the line for 
about 3ft. up is seized round with wire, so 
as to prevent the pala from biting the line and 
escaping. A whole flying fish is used for bait, 
and the time chosen for the sport is the dawn. 
Five men generally form the complement of a 
pala canoe, four to paddle, and the fifth (who 
acts as steersman as well) attends to the line. 
At a distance of a mile or so from the land, 
pieces of flying fish are thrown overboard at 
intervals, as the canoe is urged swiftly along. 
A swirl and splash astern denotes that a pala is 
following the canoe and devouring the pieces of 
fish. The baited line is then dropped astern 
and allowed to trail out for, perhaps, 50 yards 
or so, the paddles urging the canoe to increased 
speed, for the greater the speed the better 
chance of the fish seizing the bait. Another 
splash much nearer the canoe, and the steers- 
man, dropping his paddle, takes the line in 
both hands, and hauls it in as quickly as 
possible, while the four paddlers urge the 
canoe along at topmost speed. Suddenly the 
steersman feels the stout line tauten, and at 



122 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the same moment a tremendous splash astern 
shows that the prize is hooked. 

In an instant the paddlers reverse their 
positions, and face toward the man holding 
the line. The bow of the canoe has now 
become the stern, and the man that has 
previously paddled on the forward thwart be- 
comes the steersman. For the pala is strong, 
and gives a canoe a long run before he is 
exhausted enough to let a bowline be slipped 
over his lengthy body. Away goes the canoe 
with the speed of a bird on the wing, and 
the man holding the line takes a turn round 
the thwart to prevent the rough cinnet from 
cutting his fingers. Suddenly the strain ceases, 
and the line is pulled in ; the pala has paused. 
But only for a few seconds, for his great 
crescent-shaped tail rises out of the water, and 
then he " doubles," or " mills " as whalemen 
say, and darts back at a terrific speed. With 
deft hands the line is passed to the other end 
of the craft again — for there is no time to 
slew a canoe when fastened to a pala — and 
away she goes. Fortunately, the sea is gener- 
ally smooth ; were it otherwise the canoe would 
ship so much water that it would be swamped, or 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 123 



the line probably part from the additional strain. 
After another run of half a mile or so the speed 
begins to decrease, and the line is steadily hauled 
in till the gleaming blue and silvery body of the 
prize is plainly visible as he rolls from side to 
side, and, salmon-like, shakes his jaws in a fierce 
effort to free himself from the hook. Foot by 
foot the big brown-skinned native who holds 
the line hauls it in, and his keen eyes watch 
every movement of the fish ; for sometimes a 
pala when almost exhausted will yet have 
strength enough remaining to dive under the 
canoe, and foul the outrigger, which would 
mean a capsize and his eventual escape from 
his pursuers. At last he rises to the surface, 
swimming still, but lying first on one side, 
then on the other. Then the man amidships 
hands the line holder a short but heavy and 
rudely fashioned club much used in despatching 
sharks. 

Passing the line along to the next man, he 
goes forward to the head of the canoe, and 
crouches down, club in hand, while the line is 
steadily hauled in, care being taken by the 
steersman to get the fish on the port side, 
so as to avoid the outrigger, which it 



124 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



might foul or break in its dying struggles. 
At last, drawing back his brawny right arm, 
the man deals the fish a heavy blow upon its 
boi^y head. There is a terrific splashing and 
leaping of foam, the pala, half-stunned but still 
strong, describes the segment of a circle in 
his dying flurry, and his broad, crescent-like 
tail strikes the water with resounding smacks. 
For a minute or so he lies quiet, and then, 
with a last, short struggle, gives up the fight, 
and is hauled alongside. 

Often a pala is of such great length and 
weight that he cannot be either put into the 
body of an ordinary small canoe or placed upon 
the platform of the outrigger without great 
danger of upsetting the craft. In such a case 
he is either cut in halves and lifted into the 
canoe, or towed alongside the canoe. The 
latter course is not unattended with danger 
from sharks, who, rushing at the fish, either 
carry it away bodily, or stave in the canoe in 
their efforts to do so. 

The Tia Kau Reef, a few miles from 
Nanomaga, which is alluded to elsewhere in 
this work, is without doubt one of the best 
fishing grounds in the South Seas. It is a 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 



125 



submerged coral platform, and in the shallowest 
part has a depth of about four fathoms. It 
is about two hundred and fifty acres in extent, 
and from its apex the sides gradually slope, in a 
graceful rounded curve, till its outlines are lost 
in the blue depths of the ocean. During the 
ordinary trade-wind weather a ship may sail over 
even the shallowest part in perfect safety, but 
during the prevalence of the westerly winds 
— from January to March — the sea breaks 
over and around it to such a degree that it 
resembles a vast cauldron of white, roaring 
foam. Upon and around this spot fish of 
every size, shape, and colour swarm in 
prodigious numbers. But hordes of voracious 
sharks infest the place, and render fishing 
terribly dangerous after nightfall, and, indeed, 
occasionally in daylight. The people of Nano- 
maga occasionally form a large fishing party to 
the Tia Kau, and the writer, who has often 
accompanied them, has seen as many as twenty 
canoes loaded to sinking point with an extra- 
ordinary variety of fish in less than an hour. 
Among those caught was a species of red rock- 
cod of huge size and appalling mouth. Three 
of these would fill a canoe, for, although none 



126 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



of them exceed 3ft. in length, they are of a 
tremendous girth. Leather jackets of every 
imaginable hue, shape, and size rush the hook, 
and actually come to the surface and knock 
against the canoe. Some of these, with light 
blue skins and red eyes, grow to a great size — 
lolb. to 2olb. — and carry a serrated spike on 
their backs a foot in length, and as thick as a 
man's finger at the base. Grotesquely ugly aa 
is their shape, they are, however, of a very 
delicate flavour, and the natives are very fond 
of this particular species of the isumu moana 
(sea rat) as they very appropriately term leather 
jackets generally. Darting to and fro in every 
direction upon the surface of the water, great 
garfish, of the kind known in Australia as 
" long toms," will try to seize the hook 
before it can descend to the coral bottom. 
Curiously enough these fish, while of a very 
delicate flavour, are not at all relished by the 
natives, who call them " foul-feeders " — i.e., 
feeders upon dead bodies. Upon the top of 
the reef vast swarms of a fish called tafau uri 
(a species of trevally) almost hide the gorgeous 
beauties of the coralline growths below, and 
mingling with them appear an extraordinary 



Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia. 



127 



variety of parrot-fish and other rock-haunters. 
Here and there, in the deep holes and strange, 
weird-looking chasms that everywhere break 
open the crust of reef, deep down below, hawk- 
bill turtles swim lazily to and fro, and above 
them prowl the great grey ocean sharks, waiting 
for the night to come, and turning lazily about, 
with green, malevolent eyes, to watch some 
turtle, more daring than his fellows, venture 
out from the protection of his rocky hole or 
cavern. Then, besides the big grey sharks, 
there are others — blue, hammer-heads, and the 
savage little white and brown tiger shark. 
These give more trouble to the canoes than the 
big fellows, for they are so swift and active 
that once they assemble beneath a canoe it is 
impossible to haul a fish up through them. 

Only in the daytime is it possible for 
any one to fish on the Tia Kau ; at night it 
would simply mean risking a horrible death 
from the sharks for any one who would be rash 
enough to attempt it alone in a frail canoe ; 
and even in a stout boat fishing in such waters 
after dark is by no means unattended with risk. 



Birgus The Robber : The Palm 
Crab of The Pacific Islands. 



THE palm crab, or robber crab, as it 
is also called [Birgus latro), is certainly 
an ugly fellow, but must not be judged entirely 
by his outward appearance. In the South Seas 
we especially admire him when, in place of the 
blue and grey tints that were his in life, he has 
changed in the oven or pot to a lovely lobster- 
like red. In addition to the names above 
mentioned, he is known also to travellers as the 
" coconut-eating crab " and the " giant land 
crab," while to the white traders and natives of 
the South Seas he is simply uu or Uga po> " the 
night crab," something that one can smack one's 
lips at when your native cook disinters him 
from his mummy-like bandages of coconut 
leaves and reveals him with body of bright red 

shell and pendulous tail of blue fat. For, 

128 



Birgus the Robber, 



hideous as he appears, the palm crab of the 
Paumotu, Society, Tonga, and Ellice Groups in 
the South Pacific is a creature greatly prized by 
both natives and whites for the delicate flavour of 
its white flesh, and for the fat of its short lobster- 
like tail. Among the high, mountainous, and 
forest-clad islands of both the North and 
South Pacific, it is not so common as among 
the narrow and sandy palm-clad atolls of the 
Ellice, Tokelau, and other equatorial archi- 
pelagos, where, on account of the paucity of 
human inhabitants, and the enormous number 
of coconut trees and pandanus palms which 
afford them food, these crabs are very plentiful, 
and attain a great size. Especially is this so on 
the sparsely inhabited but noble lagoon islands 
of Christmas, Maduro, and Farming's Atolls, 
where, with coconuts, turtle, fish, and sea birds, 
they constitute the food of the brown-skinned, 
stalwart natives. 

The prevailing colours of the uu (pronounced 
00-00 by the Samoans) are various shades of grey 
and blue on the carapace of its back and tail, 
and a pale yellow or white underneath the 
whole of its body and legs, changing into a light 
red as the last joint of each leg, or rather claw, 

10 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



is reached. Nocturnal in its habits, it is but 
seldom seen during the daytime, and then the 
sound of a footstep sends it hurrying through 
the underscrub, or over the loose coral slabs 
that line the margin of the lagoon, to its burrow, 
which may either be beneath the roots of a large 
tree, or far down below a pile of coral stones 
banked up by the action of the sea. During 
our ship's stay at Arrecifos Lagoon, in the 
North Pacific, our boat's crew of natives, how- 
ever, captured a good many in the daytime 
by placing a number of pieces of broken coco- 
nut in the pathway near the crabs' retreat 
overnight, and watching for their appearance at 
daylight, when they were returning from their 
nightly wanderings on the beach. Their 
capture was effected by slipping a noose of 
cinnet over one of the huge nippers, and then 
winding it dexterously over and over his claws 
and body till the creature was securely bound. 
Very strong cinnet must be used, for so great is 
the uus strength that it can snap an ordinary 
fishing line like a piece of cotton thread. 
Although omnivorous in its diet, the giant land 
crab subsists principally upon the rich saccharine 
drupes of the pandanus or screw pine and the 



Birgus the Robber. 



delicate pulp of young coconuts. In almost 
every palm or pandanus grove, particularly 
those which are situated upon the smaller islets 
of an atoll, the evidences of their occupation 
may be seen in the vast quantities of young 
coconuts lying upon the ground with a large 
hole torn through the husk, and an empty 
interior. Gregarious to a certain extent, the 
robber crabs yet each have their separate 
burrow, and resent the intrusion of another of 
their kind most fiercely. Whilst living at 
Arrecifos we had ample opportunity of studying 
their habits, and found that, although so shy 
and timid in the light of day, they sallied forth 
at night time to feed with the utmost confi- 
dence, even though many people were about. 
Like the flying fish, they seemed to be unable 
to resist the attraction of a light at night, and 
our native sailors, providing themselves with 
torches of dried coconut leaves, would some- 
times capture two or three hundred at once by 
means of dragging a turtle net along the beach. 
During those months of the year when the 
green turtle come ashore to deposit their eggs 
in the sand, the robber crab has a good time, 
and devours quantities of this delicate food, 



132 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Its curious protuberant eyes, that enable it to 
see all round the compass at once, soon discover 
a place where the sand has been disturbed by 
a turtle, and, travelling along with an absurd, 
stilt-like motion, it reaches the spot, settles 
down to work, and, with nippers thrown out 
upwards and backward, begins to probe the sand 
with its sharp, powerful, and serrated claws till 
it feels the eggs, the tough skins of which it 
rapidly tears open and then feeds upon the yolk. 
One morning a native sailor came to me with 
an amused face, and asked me to come with 
him along the beach a little way, as he wanted 
me to see something very curious. This was 
a turtle's nest, as yet undisturbed, but on it lay 
three huge robber crabs locked together in a 
deadly grip, and quite incapable of freeing 
themselves, though their curious glassy eyes 
moved to and fro in alarm at our presence. 
One of them had three or four of his 
armoured legs crushed to a pulp by the powerful 
nippers of one of the trio. Evidently they had 
all reached the nest at the same time and there- 
upon engaged in combat. My companion soon 
secured the lot by tearing up a long vine that 
grew near and binding it round them. 



Birgus the Robber. 



J 33 



The oft-repeated statement that the robber 
crab ascends the coconut tree and there husks 
the nut is only a traveller's story, although, if 
it cannot find a fallen nut, and other food be 
unobtainable, it will, if it can discover a short 
coconut tree bearing fruit, ascend it, and, nipping 
the stalk, let it fall. It will then descend to 
the ground, and proceed, not to tear off the 
husk, but to make a hole in the soft, fleshy part 
of the top, and thus reach the interior. At the 
same time a full-grown robber crab, if it cannot 
find a young nut, makes no difficulty of tearing 
off the husk of an old, fully-matured one. Bit 
by bit it strips off the tough, wiry covering 
until the " monkey's face " is revealed. Into 
the " eye " of this it inserts the tip of one of its 
sharp claws, and works out a space sufficiently 
large to at last permit it to begin operations on 
the hard shell with his nippers. Then it snaps 
away piece after piece till the orifice is large 
enough to allow it to clean out the entire nut, 
which is left scraped of every remnant of 
pulp. 

The fatty, blue-coloured tail of these 
creatures is esteemed a great delicacy by the 
natives of the equatorial islands of the Pacific, 



i34 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



and the oil from it certainly is, as the writer 
knows by experience, a wonderful remedy for 
rheumatism. When the fruit of the pandanus 
tree is fully ripe, and the rich, juicy drupes fall 
upon the sandy soil, the robber crab thrives, 
and its heavy tail swells out with the fatness 
thereof till it appears to be as much as it can do 
to carry it. 

The immense muscular power in the two 
great nippers of a full-sized robber crab renders 
the greatest caution necessary when one is being 
captured. If by any mischance one's hand 
should come within reach of his grip, the bones 
of whatever finger or fingers are seized would be 
crushed. I well remember one such instance in 
Funafuti Lagoon, an island of the Ellice Group 
in the South Pacific. A young native employed 
by an old white trader there one day accom- 
panied his master to a little islet on the west 
side of the atoll, to search for uu. A quantity 
of teased-out coconut fibre and a pile of coconut 
shells at the foot of a large pua tree indicating 
the burrow of one of unusual size, the native 
searched for and soon found the hole leading to 
the lair. Cautiously inserting his arm up to 
the shoulder to feel in which way the tunnel 



Birgus the Robber. 



135 



led so that he might dig the creature out, he 
was suddenly seized by the wrist. Suffering 
the most acute pain he tried to drag his arm 
out, but the size and strength of the crab 
proved too much. His loud outcries were 
fortunately heard by the white man and also by 
a party of women and children who were fishing 
on the reef close by. Rushing to his assistance 
they at once tore away the soil and net-work of 
roots till the uu was reached and a sheath knife 
was plunged through its pendulous tail. The 
crab at once released its hold of the wretched 
man, who, however, was severely injured, and 
never recovered the full use of his right hand 
again. 

In captivity the robber crab, when fed on a 
diet of coconut, with an occasional bit of raw 
fish, thrives very well, and becomes perfectly 
resigned. An empty ship biscuit tin is selected 
for its prison and proves a secure one 
unless there should be a hole or crack anywhere 
along the sides or in the bottom. This the 
" robber " would soon discover, and inserting 
the tip of a claw into the place, tear the tin 
apart like paper and make its escape. 



i 3 6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



To the above account which originally 
appeared in The Field, the editor of that 
journal added the following : — It is not with- 
out interest to supplement the above account 
with a note on two points that have been 
overlooked, and well deserve mention. The 
first is the singular modification of structure 
which this species of an aquatic family has 
undergone to fit it for a prolonged existence on 
land. Professor Semper has pointed out in his 
admirable work, " The Natural Conditions of 
Existence as they affect Animal Life " (Inter- 
national Science Series, Vol. xxxi.), that following 
on its change of habit a portion of the gill cavities 
have become modified into an organ for breath- 
ing air, namely a lung. This is described and 
figured on pp. 5 and 185 in the work referred 
to. The other point is the use to which the fat 
is put by sagacious travellers. Mr. H. O. 
Forbes, in his " Naturalist's Wanderings in the 
Eastern Archipelago, 5 ' writes : "It accumulates 
beneath its tail a store of fat which dissolves by 
heat into a rich yellow oil, of which a large 
specimen will often yield as much as two pints. 
Thickened in the sun, it forms an excellent 
substitute for butter in all its uses. I discovered 



Birgus the Robber. 



137 



it to be a valuable preserving lubricant for guns, 
and steel instruments ; and only when a small 
bottle of it which I had for two years was 
finished, did I fully realise what a precious 
anti-corrosive in these humid regions I had 
lost." 



On an Austral TSeach. 



AS we sat, half asleep, on the shady verandah 
of the local public house (otherwise the 
" Royal Hotel ") listening to the ceaseless pound- 
ing of the surf on the ever-restless bar, a dusty, 
slouch-hatted horseman rode along the baking 
street, pulled up when he saw us, and, in a 
voice indicative of a mighty thirst, besought us 
to have a drink with him. We consented, and 
then Sandy Macpherson — that was his name — 
gladdened our hearts by telling us that he and 
his mate wanted us to come out to their camp 
on the ocean beach for a couple of days' fishing 
and shooting. The two men were beach- 
mining, that is, working the deposits of auri- 
ferous sand that are to be found all along the 
north coast of New South Wales, and their camp 

was situated on the margin of a tidal lagoon at 

138 



On an Austral Beach. 



139 



less than fifteen miles away from the dull little 
township where my friend and myself were 
awaiting tne arrival of a steamer to take us to 
Sydney. 

By daylight next morning we had breakfasted 
and saddled up, and long before the inhabitants 
of the sleepy old seaside town were awake, we 
cantered through the silent streets and out along 
the winding forest road leading towards the 
coast. Five miles from the town we emerged 
from the gloomy shadows of the grey-boled 
gums out upon the summit of a hill whose 
seaward side, clothed with a soft green nap 
of low shrub as smooth as an English privet 
hedge, was shining bright in the first rays of the 
morning sun ; while at its base of black trap- 
rock the lazy ocean swell had not yet heart to 
break, for only the lightest air ruffled the sur- 
face of the sea beyond. To the north, cape and 
cape and headland and headland of pale misty 
blue were fast purpling in the glorious sun, and 
southward there trended in a great sweeping 
curve a noble beach full fifteen miles in one 
unbroken stretch. Beneath us, where it began, 
its hard surface at the water-margin was dotted 
with countless groups of snow-white seagulls 



14° Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

and jetty plumaged " redbills," all standing or 
sitting in motionless array with heads facing to 
the sea ; further on the line of beach was yet 
but half revealed, for the smoky haze of a semi- 
tropic sea still hovered o'er it, and floated in 
gossamer-like clouds up towards the dark green 
fringe of scrub-clad hills. Oh, the beauties of 
a summer's morn upon that wild and lonely 
coast ! The strange, sweet, earthy smell of the 
rich red soil beneath our horses' feet, the sweeter 
calls and cries of awakening bird life around us, 
the glint of the blue Pacific before and the dome 
of cloudless turquoise above, and the soft cool- 
ness of the land breeze as it stole gently sea- 
ward from the mountains, and stirred and 
swayed the leafy banners of the lofty gums and 
tapering bangalows ! And then, as we turned 
and followed the bearded Mac adown the 
narrow fern-lined track that led us to the 
shore, the blue sky above us vanished and 
showed but here and there through the thickly 
overarching branches and clustering vines and 
serpent-like lianas ; a big black wallaby leapt 
across the path just in front of our leader's 
horse, then another and another, and all three 
crashed into the thick undergrowth of the sea- 



On an Austral Beach. 



ward hill slope ; a flock of green and golden 
parrots shrieked angrily at us from the boughs 
of a blossoming honeysuckle — and then we came 
out again into the light and warmth of the sun- 
shine and the noise of the tumbling surf and 
seabird clamour of the open beach. 

" Now we can go as hard as we like," said 
Sandy, and away he shot before us over the 
hard, firm sand, riding close to the water's edge, 
and hurrooing wildly at the whirling clouds of 
seagulls and divers as they rose with hoarse, 
protesting croaks at the galloping feet of our 
shoeless steeds. Two miles onward, and then a 
tiny shining stream of water that cut its way 
through the sand to the sea brought us up 
sharply — for our horses knew the danger of a 
quicksand — and we walked cautiously up to 
beyond high-water mark, and there crossed. 
Then, for the next hour or so we walked or 
trotted soberly along, smoking our pipes and 
watching through the transparent green of the 
rollers as they curled to break fifty yards away, 
the darting forms of countless thousands of 
great sea-mullet swarming beachward with the 
rising tide. Sometimes as we approached too 
near to the water there would be an agitated 



142 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



swish and swirl and bubble, and a compact body 
of keen-eyed " blue-fish " or whiting that were 
cruising in water scarce deep enough to swim in, 
fled seaward with lightning-like rapidity. That 
we should see plenty of fish along this beach we 
knew, but we were not prepared for the extra- 
ordinary sight that we witnessed a mile or two 
further on ; for here, at the mouths of two 
little creeks which ran down to the sea in 
parallel lines not a hundred yards apart, the 
water was literally teeming with countless thou- 
sands of silvery bream, trevally, whiting and 
garfish, and every wave seemed to add to their 
number. Swimming so close to the shore that 
every now and then some hundreds would be 
left stranded on the sand by the backwash, were 
swarms of dark green-backed garfish, about 
fifteen inches long. It did not take us long to 
discover the cause of this gathering of the clans 
— the banks of each rivulet were covered with 
layers and ridges of fine big prawns, and by the 
turmoil at the creeks' mouths it was evident 
that numbers were being swept down into the 
hungry jaws that awaited them. On the pre- 
vious evening, so Sandy told us, there had been 
a violent thunderstorm, the creeks had risen 



0?2 An Austral Beach. 



H3 



suddenly, and rushing down to the sea had met 
the incoming spring tide, and every wave that 
broke upon the shore left some hundredweights 
of stranded prawns behind it, where they re- 
mained to be devoured by the gulls and divers 
and the vast bodies of fish which, when the tide 
again rose, were enabled to ascend to the higher 
parts of the beach. The greater number of 
these delicious crustaceans were still alive, only 
those which had been washed apart from the 
thicker masses and ridges of the others having 
succumbed to the rays of the sun. Sandy had 
come prepared, for he now dismounted and 
began to fill a sugar-bag with them. Prawn 
soup, he told us, was " verra good." Also he 
observed that if he could only get but one-half 
of these masses of prawns up to Sydney market 
they would be worth £25 to him, and that was 
more than he could make by three months' 
hard work at beach-mining. Before we mounted 
again we watched our chance and picked up 
nearly a dozen of stranded garfish ; these 
Sandy popped into the bag on top of the 
prawns. 

For another mile or two we rode slowly along 
the hard, unyielding sand, till we came in sight 



144 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



of a high sand head — the northern side of the 
entrance to a tidal lagoon — and then turned 
away up from the beach to where a thin, waver- 
ing line of smoke ascended from the scrub. 
This was the diggers' camp, and in a few 
minutes Sandy's mate came to meet us, carrying 
a couple of fat black ducks which he had just 
shot. The tent was situated on a little grassy 
bluff that overlooked the lagoon, and while Sandy 
and his mate set about to cook our breakfast of 
grilled garfish and grilled duck, my companion 
and I took their guns and set out along the 
lagoon bank, taking care to walk with discre- 
tion, for black snakes were very plentiful. A 
ten minutes' walk brought us to an open space, 
from where we had a splendid view of a lovely 
scene. The broad, shallow lagoon, with its 
shores lined with she-oaks and clumps of 
flowering, golden wattle growing literally on 
the sandy beaches, stretched inland for many 
miles, while towards the camp we could just see 
the blue Pacific showing against the high white 
wall of glistening sand that separated the lake 
from the sea. The heavy storm of the previous 
evening had brought down a vast volume of 
water, and the lagoon was quite a foot or two 



On an Austral Beach, 



H5 



higher than the sea-level. In the evening we 
saw the sea and lagoon on a level, and only 
divided by a narrow strip of sand ; another 
thunderstorm or a heavy sea or two would have 
washed this away, and a wide entrance have 
been formed, only to be closed up again in a 
few weeks. All over the placid lake (whose 
waters are very brackish) were parties of black 
swans swimming lazily to and fro, or resting 
asleep, and not deigning to notice the noisy 
ducks and waterhens around them. On the 
other bank long rows of pelicans stood in solemn 
silence. The waters were alive with fish, and, 
indeed, that afternoon the four of us caught 
whiting and bream till we were tired. One 
only needed to stand on the sand and fling his 
line into about two feet of water, when the bait 
would be literally rushed, for the lagoon entrance 
having been closed to the sea for over a month, 
the fish had all gathered at the sea end, their 
instinct telling them that it might force a 
passage through at any moment. After spend- 
ing an hour in attempting to get a shot at 
a flock of ducks, we returned to camp to eat 
our fish and game. We lazed away two 
delightful days, and then, saddling our horses 



146 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



again, we rode northward to the little town, 
to the symphony of the beating surf and the 
rustle of the tree-clad slopes high above us to 
the west. 



A Noble Sea Game. 



JUST as my wild-eyed, touzle-headed Gilbert 
Island cook brought me my early coffee 
and hard ship biscuit, Toria and Vailele — 
brown-skinned brother and sister — peeped in 
through the window, and in their curious 
bastard Samoan said 'twas a glorious morn to 
fahaheke. 

Now I had learned to fahaheke (use a surf- 
board), having been instructed therein by the 
youths and maidens of the village individually 
and collectively. And when you have once 
learned surf-swimming the game takes posses- 
sion of your innermost soul like unto cycling 
and golf. So I said I would come, and instantly 
my young friends handed me in a surfing cos- 
tume, a highly indecorous looking girdle of thin 

stoppings of the leaf of the pandanus palm, 

147 



i 4 8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



This I blushingly declined, preferring a gar- 
ment of my own design — a pair of dungaree 
pants razeed from the knees down. Then, 
bidding me hurry up and meet the swimming 
party on the beach, Toria and his sister ran 
back to the village to attend early morning 
service, to which the wooden cylinder that did 
duty for a church bell was already summoning 
the people. 

Now, in some of the Pacific Islands surf- 
swimming is one of the forbidden things, for 
many of the native teachers hold the sport to 
savour of the po uli — the heathen days — 
and the young folks can only indulge in the 
innocent diversion away from the watchful eye 
of the local Chadband and his alert myrmidons, 
the village police, among whom all fines are 
divided. But in this particular little island we 
had for our resident missionary a young stalwart 
Samoan, who did not forbid his flock to dance 
or sing, nor prohibit the young girls from wear- 
ing flowers in their dark locks. And he him- 
self was a mighty fisherman and a great diver 
and swimmer, and smoked his pipe and laughed 
and sang with the people out of the fulness of 
his heart when they were merry, and prayed for 



A Noble Sea Game, 



149 



and consoled them in their sorrow. So we all 
loved Ioane, the teacher, and Eline, his pretty 
young wife, and his two jolly little muddy 
brown infants ; for there was no other native 
missionary like him in all the wide Pacific. 

The simple service was soon over, and then 
there was a great scurrying to and fro among 
the thatched houses, and presently in twos and 
threes the young people appeared, hurrying 
down to the beach and shouting loudly to the 
white man to follow. A strong breeze had 
sprung up during the night, and the long 
rolling billows, which had sped waveringly 
along for, perhaps, a thousand miles from 
beyond the western sea-rim, were sweeping 
now in quick succession over the wide flat 
stretch of reef that stood out from the northern 
end of the island like a huge table. Two hun- 
dred yards in width from the steep-to face it pre- 
sented to the sea, it ceased, almost as abruptly as 
it began, in a bed of pure white sand, six feet 
below the surface of the water ; and this sandy 
bottom continued all the way from the inner 
edge of the reef to the line of coco-palms 
fringing the island beach. At low tide, when 
the ever-restless rollers dashed vainly against 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the sea-face of the reef, whose surface was then 
bared and shining in the sun, this long strip of 
sheltered water would lay quiet and undisturbed, 
as clear as crystal and as smooth as a sheet ot 
glass ; but as the tide rose the waves came 
sweeping over the coral barrier and poured 
noisily over its inner ledge till the lagoon 
again became as surf-swept and agitated as the 
sea beyond. This was the favoured spot with 
the people for surf-swimming, for when the 
tide was full the surf broke heavily on the reef, 
and there was a clear run of half-a-mile from 
the starting-point on the inner face of the coral 
table to the soft, white beach. Besides that, 
there was not a single rock or mound of coral 
between the reef and the shore upon which a 
swimmer might strike — with fatal effect if the 
danger were not perceived in time. 

The north point was quite a mile from the 
village, and, the tide being very high, we had 
to follow a path through the coconut groves 
instead of walking along the beach, for the 
swirling waves, although well spent when they 
reached the shore, were washing the butts of the 
coco-palms, whose matted roots protruded from 
the sand at high-water mark. In front of us 



A Noble Sea Game. 



raced some scores of young children ranging 
from six years of age to ten, pushing and 
jostling each other in their eagerness to be first 
on the scene. Although the sun was hot 
already, the breeze was cool and blew strongly 
in our faces when we emerged from the narrow 
leafy track out upon the open strand. Then 
with much shouting and laughing, and playful 
thumping of brown backs and shoulders, Timi, 
the master of ceremonies for the occasion, mar- 
shalled us all in line and then gave the word 
to go, and with a merry shout, mingled with 
quavering feminine squeaks, away we sprang 
into the sea, each one pushing his or her surf- 
board in front, or shooting it out ahead, and 
trying to reach the reef before any one else. 

And now the slight regard for the conven- 
tionalities that had been maintained during the 
walk from the village vanished, and the fun 
began — ducking and other aquatic horseplay, 
hair-pulling, seizing of surf-boards and throw- 
ing them back shorewards, and wrestling 
matches between the foremost swimmers. The 
papal agi (white man), swimming between the 
boy Toria and a short, square-built native 
named Temana, had succeeded in keeping well 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



in the van, when he was suddenly seized by the 
feet by two little imps, just as a sweeping roller 
lifted him high up. And down the white man 
went, and away went his surf-ooard shoreward 
amid the shrieking laughs of the girls. 

" Never mind," shouted Temana, shaking 
his black curly head like a water-spaniel ; and 
seizing a board from a girl near him, and 
pushing her under at the same time, he shot 
it over towards me ; and then Toria, with a 
wrathful exclamation, caught one of the imps 
who had caused my disaster and, twining his 
left hand in her long, floating hair, pitched her 
board away behind him. This little incident, 
however, lost us our places, and amid the merry 
gibes of some naked infants who were in the 
ruck, we swam on in face of the slapping seas, 
and at last gained the edge of the reef, which 
was now alive with nude, brown-skinned figures, 
trying to keep their position in the boiling 
surf for the first grand " shoot " shoreward. 

Between the lulls of the frequent seas the 
water was only about four feet deep, and presently 
some sort of order was formed, and we awaited 
the next big roller. Over the outer reef it 
reared its greeny crest, curled and broke with 



A Noble Sea Game. 



*53 



thundering clamour, and roared its mile-line 
length towards us. Struggling hard to keep 
our feet on the slippery coral against the swift 
back-wash, we waited till the white wall of hissing 
foam was five feet away, and then flung ourselves 
forward flat upon our boards. Oh, how can 
one describe the ecstatic feeling that follows 
as your feet go up and your head and shoulders 
down, and you seem to fly through the water 
with the spume and froth of the mighty roller 
playing about your hair and hissing and singing 
in your ears ? Half a mile away lies the beach, 
but you cannot see it, only the plumed crowns 
of the palms swaying to and fro in the breeze ; 
for your head is low down, and there is nothing 
visible but a wavering line of shaking green. 
Perhaps, if you are adept enough to turn your 
head to right or left, you will see silhouetted 
against the snowy wall of foam scores and 
scores of black heads, and then before you 
can draw your breath from excitement the beach 
is before you, and you slip off your board as 
the wave that has carried you so gloriously 
in sweeps far up on the shore, amid the vines 
and creepers which enwrap the sea-laved roots 
of the coco-palms. 



i54 



Wila Life in Southern Seas. 



Then back again, up and down over the 
seas, diving beneath any that are too high and 
swift to withstand, till you reach the ledge of 
the reef again and wait another chance. Not 
all together do we go this time, for now the 
swimmers are widely separated, and as we swim 
out we meet others coming back, flying before 
the rollers under which we have to dive. Here 
and there are those who from long practice 
and skill disdain to use a board ; for springing 
in front of a curling sea, by a curious trick 
of hollowing in the back and depressing the 
head and neck, they fly in before the rolling 
surge at an amazing speed, beating the water 
with one hand as they go, and uttering wild 
cries of triumph as they pass us, struggling 
seaward. Others there are who with both 
hands held together before them, keep them- 
selves well in position amid the boiling rush of 
waters by a movement of the legs and feet alone. 
But, that day, to my mind the girls looked 
prettiest of all when, instead of lying prone, 
they sat upon their boards, and held them- 
selves in position by grasping the sides. Twice, 
as we swam out, did we see some twenty or 
thirty of them mounted slopingly on the face 



A Noble Sea Game. 



155 



of a curling sea, and with their long, dark 
locks trailing behind them, rush shoreward 
enveloped in mist and spray like goddesses of 
the waves. Their shrill cries of encouragement 
to each other, the loud thunder of the surf as 
it broke upon its coral barrier, the seething 
hum and hiss of the roller as it impelled them 
to the beach, and the merry shrieks of laughter 
that ensued when some luckless girl over- 
balanced or misguided herself in the midst of 
the foam, lent a zest of enjoyment to the scene 
that made one feel himself a child again. 

For two hours we swam out again and again 
to fly shoreward ; and at last we met together 
on the beach, to rest under the shade of the 
palms, the girls to smoke their banana-leaf 
sului of strong negro-head tobacco, and the 
men their pipes, while the younger boys were 
sent to gather us young drinking -coconuts. 
And then we heard a sudden cry of mingled 
laughter and astonishment ; for, tottering along 
the path, surf-board under arm, came an old 
man of seventy, nude to his loins- 

" Hu ! hu ! " he cried, and his wrinkled face 
twisted, and his toothless mouth quivered, " is 
old Pakia so blind and weak that he cannot 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



fahaheke ? Ah, let but some of ye guide me 
out and set me before the surf — then will ye 
see." 

Poor old fellow ! Like an old troop-horse 
who dozes in a field, and whose blood tingles 
to some distant bugle call, the ancient, from 
his little hut near by, had heard our cries, and 
his brave old heart had awakened to the call of 
lusty youth. And so, earnestly begging the 
loan of a board from one of the swimmers, he 
had come to join us. And then two merry- 
hearted girls, taking him to the water's edge, 
swam out with him to the reef amid our wild 
cheers and laughter. They soon reached the 
starting-point, and then a roar of delight went 
up from us as we saw them place the ancient on 
his board, his knees to his chin, and his hands 
grasping the sides. Then, as a bursting roller 
thundered along and swept down upon them, 
they gave him a shove and sprang before it 
themselves — one on each side. And, old and 
half blind as he was, he came in like an arrow 
from the bow of a mighty archer, his scanty 
white locks trailing behind his poor old head 
like the frayed-out end of a manilla hawser, 
his face set, and his feeble old throat crowing 



A Noble Sea Game. 



iS7 



a quavering, shaking note of triumph as he shot 
up to the very margin of the beach, amid 
a roar of applause from the naked and admiring 
spectators. 

Poor old Pakia ! Well indeed art thou 
entitled to this stick of tobacco from the white 
man to console thy cheery and venerable old 
pagan soul in the watches of the night. 



The Gigantic Aibicore of Poly- 
nesia — The Takuo. 



UNDER a sky of brass, and with the pitch 
bubbling up in every seam of our heated 
decks, for two days our little trading vessel had 
drifted to the eastward, borne steadily along by 
a swift, strong current. Then, just as we had 
lost sight of the cloud-capped peak of Ponape, 
a faint line of palms stood outlined upon the 
quivering sea-rim, ten miles ahead. This was 
Ngatik, one of the many hundreds of low- 
lying atolls that form the greater portion of 
the Caroline Archipelago, in the North Pacific. 
As the sun sank the faint air that gave us 
steerage way freshened a little, and in another 
hour or so we had the white line of beach of 
the little isle in view from the deck, and knew 
that we should have the satisfaction by nightfall 
of obtaining some fresh provisions and a night's 



The Takuo. 



159 



good rest on shore. For a " furious calm," 
as our captain called it, is a horrible thing to 
endure cooped up on board a small trading 
vessel of seventy tons, carrying an odoriferous 
cargo of copra (dried coconut), sharks' fins, and 
whale oil. Two weeks before we had lost both 
our boats in the surf when struggling over 
the sweeping seas on the reef at Duperrey's 
Island, and our skipper thought that we could 
buy at least one, from the white trader living 
on Ngatik ; this was our main object in 
touching at such an isolated spot. 

An hour before sunset we were within a mile 
of the beach and saw the trader's boat being 
launched and manned. In a quarter of an hour 
she came alongside, the trader jumped on 
deck, and then good-naturedly offered to let 
his boat's crew tow us in to an anchorage before 
it became dark. A line was soon passed into 
the boat, and, aided by a light air now and 
then, we went along in fine style. 

Our visitor was a young, powerfully-built, 
deeply-bronzed American, named Harry Stirling. 
He was a great sportsman, and presently told 
us that we had come to Ngatik in good time, 
as the island was literally alive with pigeons — 



i6o 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



it being the time of the year when they flocked 
over from Ponape to feed on a large red berry 
which is very plentiful just after the rainy 
season ; and, more than that, he said, we could 
witness a great dance and feast which was to 
take place on the lagoon beach that very 
evening. And then, as an additional attraction, 
he promised to send his boat's crew out with 
me to fish for takuo. 

Now, although I had seen the takuo in 
Eastern Polynesia among the Tokelau and 
Phoenix Groups, I had often heard old traders 
in the North-West Pacific assert that the 
mighty fish was absolutely unknown in the 
Marshall and Caroline Archipelagoes. Doubt- 
ing the correctness of this, I had several times 
tried the deep water off the barrier reefs of 
Strong's Island and Ponape — for I was very 
anxious to catch one of these ocean prizes — but 
without success. 

I soon learnt from Harry that they were 
very plentiful, not only about Ngatik (outside 
the reef), but in the lagoon of Providence 
Island — the Arrecifos of the old Spanish navi- 
gators. But the natives of Ngatik had them- 
selves never caught a takuo until they were 



The Takuo. 



161 



initiated into the method of capture by Harry's 
boat's crew, who were natives of Pleasant 
Island, a lonely spot situated just south of 
the Equator, and between long. 165 0 and 
1 70 0 W. These Pleasant Islanders are expert 
deep-sea fishermen ; they are an offshoot of 
the Gilbert Islands people, and, although of a 
fierce and intractable nature, are much sought 
after and valued by isolated traders in Micro- 
nesia and Polynesia for their fidelity to white 
men, their great bodily strength, and the 
aversion they have to mix even with natives 
who are allied to them in language, customs, 
and mode of life generally. By the Samoans 
and other Eastern Polynesians the Pleasant 
Islanders are as much dreaded as are the 
warlike natives of Rubiana by the rest of 
the inhabitants of the murderous Solomon 
Group. My friend had over thirty of these 
people working for him on Ngatik — men, 
women, and children. They had followed his 
fortunes for some years, and, hot-tempered and 
quarrelsome as they were with strangers, they 
served him with the most unquestioning loyalty 
and obedience. On this occasion he had over 
a dozen men with him in the boat, and as they 

12 



1 62 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



struck their broad-bladed paddles into the 
water they sang a weird, monotonous song in 
their harsh, guttural tongue, and our own crew 
of Rotumah men and Niue " boys " gazed at 
them in wondering distrust as wicked heathens 
— for the Pleasant Islanders would never let 
a missionary put foot ashore in their island 
home. 

We dropped anchor at sunset just abreast of 
the trader's house, and were soon all ashore 
enjoying his open-handed hospitality, and sur- 
rounded by a hundred or so of the Ngatik 
people, who came to pay their respects to the 
captain and myself. They are a small, slenderly 
built race, and even the men looked very 
effeminate beside Harry Stirling's huge, brawny- 
backed followers. 

With takuo running riot in my mind, I 
managed to evade attending the chief's great 
feast and dance by sending him a present and 
a message to the effect that " my heart was 
eaten up with hot desire to catch a takuo" and 
that, as the night was fine and calm, I begged 
his Highness to excuse me, etc., etc. 

Leaving the captain and Harry, therefore, 
to honour the entertainment by their presence, 



The Takuo. 



163 



I leisurely set about preparing my tackle. I 
had a month previously bought from an 
American trading brig some magnificent hooks 
— hollow-pointed, flatted Kirby's, about 6 in. 
long in the shank and with a corresponding 
curve, and as thick as a lead pencil — big 
enough and strong enough for a full-grown 
tiger shark. My line, too, was a good one — 
American cotton, 32 cord, and as stout as 
signal halliards — -just the very thing for either 
a takuo or a pala. Three or four of Harry's 
Pleasant Island natives watched me with great 
interest, and all expressed their admiration of 
my tackle, and then showed me their own 
— thick nine-plait coir cinnet, and heavy, 
barbless hooks, the points curved in so deeply 
as to render a barb unnecessary. These were 
their own manufacture, made from old fish 
spears. 

My host's brother-in-law (Stirling had a 
Pleasant Island wife) was in charge of our party, 
which numbered six, just enough for the boat, 
on reaching which, two hours before dawn, we 
found a number of children of both sexes 
awaiting us, carrying baskets of cooked fowls, 
fish and young coconuts, which were at once 



164 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



put on board ; evidently my friends intended 
that we should make a night of it. 

Pushing off, we paddled across the lagoon 
under the most glorious starlight imaginable, 
and soon reached the passage through the reef. 
Here a torch of coconut leaves was lighted, and 
a dozen or two of flying-fish were caught for 
bait ; and then hoisting our sail, with a gentle 
air from the land, we ran along the outer edge 
of the reef just away from the great curling 
rollers, till we rounded the weather horn of the 
little island. Lowering the sail we made all 
snug, lighted pipes, and baited our hooks. As 
takuo are generally caught best when drifting, 
we did not anchor, but sounded first to feel 
our ground, and touched the coral bottom 
with our lines at about twenty-five fathoms. 
Then lowering to about twenty fathoms we 
began to fish. Each native baited with a 
whole flying-fish — I used but a half of one. 
For a few minutes not a sound was heard 
until Tebau (Harry's brother-in-law) suddenly 
darted his hand into the water and seized 
a large garfish which had ventured too close. 
It was a beautiful silvery scaled fish, nearly a 
yard long, and just as Tebau held him up for 



The Takuo, 



165 



me to look at, saying it was better bait than 
flying-fish, a young lad sitting next to me gave 
a grunt, and I heard his rough cinnet line 
grinding against the gunwale. In an instant 
we were all on the alert. That it was a heavy 
fish I could see. " Shark ? " I queried. 

" No, feel the line/' he replied, and the 
moment I felt the jerky vibrations I knew that 
it was not a shark. Presently we caught sight 
of a white, wavy mass, and then up came a 
large, scaleless fish called a laheu. He was 
quite 2olb. or 251b., and kicked up a tre- 
mendous row when dropped into the boat, and 
accompanied his struggles by emitting a peculiar 
grunting sound. Although of a bright silvery 
colour, he was a most unpleasant creature to 
handle, for his skin was covered with a peculiar 
slimy exudation, and I was warned by my 
native friends to keep my line clear, or 
else I could never hold it if I got a heavy 
fish on. 

" We must go out further," said Tebau ; 
" we are in too shallow water." 

We drifted about for half an hour, and, 
meeting with no luck, were just about to try 
the lee side of the island, when, an hour before 



i66 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



sunrise, I got a run, and before I could properly 
feel my fish he had taken eight or ten fathoms 
of slack line away. 

" That's a takuo" said Tebau. 

Now did I find the advantage of a thick line 
in a great depth of water, and with a strong 
fish at the end of it ; for although only a small 
takuo — about iolb. — this fellow gave me some 
trouble pulling him up, making swift dives when- 
ever he felt the line slacken a bit, and shaking 
his head violently in the endeavour to free him- 
self from the hook. As soon as I had got him 
in over the side one of the Pleasant Islanders lit 
our boat lantern, and I had a good look at my 
first takuo. In every respect but one I found 
him to be exactly like the common albicore in 
shape, colour, and markings, the only difference 
being the bony tail and thick laminated plates 
extending up from the tail for about four inches ; 
the centre ridge of these laminations was as sharp 
as a knife-edge. This, however, was but a baby 
fish ; before daylight we caught three others, the 
largest of which we weighed at the trader's 
house, it scaled 8ilb. Just as dawn began to 
break I hooked another, but when about half- 
way up he made such a fierce rush, that, seeing 



The Takuo. 



167 



I had but a fathom or two of line left inboard, 
I foolishly took a turn round a rowlock, and the 
hook snapped. Only that I was so excited and 
nervous, I should have remembered that I ought 
to have gone either forward or aft, and thus let 
him tow the boat a bit ; instead of this, by my 
remaining amidships, and the fish diving almost 
vertically in true albicore fashion, the boat re- 
mained stationary, and something had to go. 
However, I was well satisfied with our night's 
fishing. I had caught one of the four takuo 
taken, and my pleasure was increased when the 
red sun shot up from the sleeping sea and re- 
vealed the beauties of our prizes with their 
broad dark-blue backs, sheeny silvery sides and 
bellies, and bright golden fins and armour-clad 
tails. 

From my wild, half-naked companions I 
learnt much of the habits of this great ocean 
fish, the flesh of which, despite its size iwhen 
full-grown, is rather delicate even to European 
palates. Unlike the true albicore, which is 
almost a surface-swimming fish, the takuo 
haunts the coral beds at depths of from thirty 
to one hundred yards, or at any rate appear 
to do so, for they are usually caught in very 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



deep water, and certainly do prey upon rock- 
cod, crabs, etc., that are never found in shallow 
water. Then, too, they are semi-nocturnal feeders, 
which is not the case of the ordinary albicore 
or bonita, and at times take a bait on a moon- 
light night, although they bite best at dusk or 
dawn, and, indeed, will occasionally follow the 
baited line almost to the surface in broad daylight. 
Especially is this so with a certain variety 
of the species which are found in the deep 
lagoon islands of the Marshall Group, such as 
Maduro and Arnhu Atolls ; these sometimes 
attain an enormous size, scaling up to loolb. 
and 1501b. But they grow even to greater 
weights than this, according to native accounts, 
and I was shown the skull of one caught on 
Pleasant Island in 1891, which a local trader 
assured me was over 6ft. in length, " with 
a body as thick as a young cow." When 
hooked they make the most desperate attempts 
to free the hook by a series of violent head- 
shakings, after the manner of the tarpon of 
Florida. Sometimes they will make a straight 
dart upwards at a great speed, and then, slew- 
ing round with lightning-like rapidity, dive 
almost vertically, snapping a hook or line 



The Takuo. 



169 



strong enough to hold a full-grown porpoise 
— the strongest and swiftest fish I know. 

Six months later, when we were again cruising 
through this magnificent group of islands, we 
anchored at the lovely and fertile Kusaie 
(Strong's Island), the eastern outlier of the 
archipelago, and a resident trader there told 
us of a novel experience that had befallen him 
a week previously. He and some natives had 
set off in a canoe to look for turtle when they 
saw a huge lagoon takuo following them. Not 
having a line on board of sufficient strength to 
hold such a fish, one of the natives suggested 
that the turtle spear would do instead — they 
could entice him close enough to drive it into 
him. The line attached to the spear — a heavy 
piece of iron with an old-fashioned V-shaped 
barb — was about thirty fathoms long, and 
strong enough for any purpose. Some small fish 
were thrown overboard, and these were quickly 
snapped up by the takuo, which was very daring 
and hungry. In a few minutes he came quite 
close to the canoe, and opened his huge mouth 
to seize a piece of fish trailed along the surface 
by the white man, and at the same moment the 
native who held the turtle spear darted his 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



weapon, and sent it clean through the great 
fish's jaw. In an instant the takuo " sounded," 
going down almost in a straight line, and the 
trader, fearing that line and spear would be 
lost, shouted to one of his crew to take a couple 
of turns of the line round the for'ard pole that 
supported the outrigger. The native — a boy — 
was so confused that by some mischance the end 
of the line, which was knotted, got jammed 
before he could take the necessary turns. Away 
went the canoe, the trader keeping it head on 
as well as he could by steering, for with the 
slightest deviation it would have either capsized 
or filled. Presently the fish rose a few fathoms 
(but still kept up a great speed), and the man 
for'ard attempted to drag free the knotted end 
of the line. But he was not quick enough, for 
suddenly the takuo went sharp about and then 
dived again, and in an instant over went the 
canoe and out went the occupants. The weight 
of the now filled craft seemed to drive the fish 
desperate, for he made tremendous struggles to 
free himself, rising twice to the surface and 
making a terrific splashing. Eventually the 
outrigger lashings carried away, but the 
for'ard outrigger pole stood, and two of the 



The Takuo. 



171 



natives swam after the canoe and managed to 
get in. Quite a quarter of an hour, however, 
passed before the takuo was sufficiently done 
up to be hauled alongside and stunned by blows 
from a paddle. It was found that the barb of 
the spear had gone right through the tip of the 
bony upper jaw, and had scarcely injured the 
fish at all. Being quite impossible to take such 
an enormous-girthed creature into the canoe, it 
was towed ashore amid the plaudits of the 
assembled villagers. I was shown some huge 
strips of its sun-dried flesh by the trader, and 
quite believed his assertion that it weighed over 
three hundred pounds. 



Old Samoan Days. 



WE lived right merrily down there in 
fair Samoa, four-and-twenty years ago, 
in the days when our hearts were young, and 
those of us who had dug our trenches before 
the City of Fortune took no heed of the 
watches of the night ; for, then, to us there 
was no night — only long, long happy days of 
mirth and jollity, and the sound of women's 
voices from the shore, mingling with the chorus 
of the sailors, and the clink, clink, of the wind- 
lass pawls as the ships weighed anchor to sail 
for distant isles. And no one checked our 
youthful insolence of mirth ; for then there was 
no such thing known as the Berlin Treaty Act 
" for the Better Government of Samoa," with 
its comedy-tragedy of gorgeously bedizened 

Presidents, and Vice-Presidents, and Chief 

172 



Old Samoan Days. 



l 73 



Justices, and Lands Commissioners, and good- 
ness knows who, of whom no one in England 
would scarce have ever known, but that the 
slender, wasted finger of the man who rests on 
the summit of Vailima Mountain pointed at 
them in bitter contempt and withering scorn, as 
silly, vain people who lived in his loved Samoa. 

Ah ! merry, merry times were those in the 
olden days, although even then the rifles 
cracked, and the bullets sang among the orange 
groves along Apia beach ; for the rebel lines 
were close to the town, and now and then a 
basket of bleeding heads would be carried 
through the town by mourning women who 
beat their brown, naked breasts and made a 
tagi 1 throughout the night. 

There were not quite a hundred white people 
living in Apia then, half of whom were Ger- 
mans ; the rest were Englishmen, Americans, 
and Frenchmen. But almost every day there 
came a ship of some sort into the little reef- 
bound harbour. Perhaps it was a big German 
barque, direct from Hamburg, laden with vile 
Hollands gin and cheap German trade goods ; 
or a wandering, many-boated sperm whaler, with 
1 Lamentation. 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



storm-worn hull, putting in to refresh ere she 
sailed northward and westward to the Moluccas ; 
or a white-painted, blackbirding brig from the 
Gilbert Islands, her armed decks crowded with 
wild-eyed, brown-skinned naked savages, who 
came to toil on the German plantations ; or a 
Sydney trading schooner such as was ours — 
long, low, and lofty sparred. Then, too, an 
English or American man-of-war would look 
in now and again to see how things were going, 
and perhaps try some few land cases which were 
brought before the captain, or make inquiries 
about that Will o' the Wisp of the ocean, 
Captain Bully Hayes. And the air was full of 
rumours of annexation by one of the great 
Powers interested in Samoa, and the Americans 
mistrusted the English, and the English the 
Americans, and they both hated the Germans as 
much as the Samoans hated them. 

One day I set out to pay a visit to a native 
friend — a young chief named Gafalua (Two 
Fathoms). And a very good name it was, too, 
for he was a man who stood over six feet on 
his naked feet. He lived at a pretty little 
village named Laulii, a few miles northward 



Old S a moan Days. 



175 



from Apia, and I had to cross several tiny rivers 
ere I came to the final stretch of beach that led 
to the place. The air was full of a sweet 
summer softness, and as I walked along the 
firm, hard sand, with the cool shade of the 
forest on my right, and the wide sweep of reef- 
bound water on my left, I felt a strange but 
delightful elasticity of spirits. Now and then a 
native carrying a basket of fruit or vegetables 
would pass me with swinging tread, and give 
me a kindly Talofa ! 1 or, perhaps, setting down 
his load, would stop and chat for a few minutes. 

Presently, as I turned into a bend of the 
beach, I came across a party of some eight or 
ten people, seated under the shade of a coconut 
tree, and talking eagerly together. Most of 
them were old acquaintances, so laying down 
my gun, I acepted their invitation to stay and 
nofo ma tala tala fua^ i.e., rest and indulge in a 
little talk ; " for," said one of them, " we have 
news. There is now an American man-of-war 
at anchor in Saluafata. She came there last 
night, and now are we moved in our minds to 
know what this may mean to Samoa. What 
do you think ? " 

1 The Samoan salutation — " My love to you." 



176 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



I shook my head. How could I tell ? I 
knew nothing of these things. c< Perhaps," I 
suggested, " she has but come into Saluafata 
Harbour to give the men liberty, for there is 
much sickness in Apia." 

" Aye," said one man, with a sigh, " 'tis like 
enough. But are we never to know whether 
America or England will put their hand over 
us, or are we all to be swallowed up by the 
Germans ? " 

To this I could say nothing, only sympathise ; 
and then I learned to my great pleasure that the 
man-of-war was a ship I knew, and her doctor 
was an old friend of mine whose acquaint- 
ance I had made in the Caroline Islands a year 
or two before, when I was making my first 
voyage as supercargo. So after smoking a 
cigarette with my friends I bade them goodbye, 
and set out again for Laulii. 

An hour later I reached the village, and was 
warmly greeted by some forty or fifty people of 
both sexes. Gafalua, they told me, had gone 
to Saluafata to visit the warship, yet if I would 
but send a message to him he would quickly 
hasten back to greet his white friend. And as 
they clustered around me, each one volunteering 



Old Samoan Days. 



*77 



to be messenger, the chief's daughter, Vaitupu, 
a charming girl of fourteen, accompanied by a 
younger brother, ran up and embraced me with 
the greatest demonstrations of joy, for I was 
once an old comrade of theirs in days gone by 
in many a fishing trip and forest ramble along 
the shores of both Upolu and Savaii — the two 
principal islands of the group. And then, having 
sent off a message to Gafalua and written a note 
on the leaf of my pocket-book to the doctor of 
the warship, I resigned myself to the never- 
ending attentions of my native friends. By 
and by, after I had eaten some baked fish and 
drank a young coconut, the whole of the elder 
women in the village entered the house, and 
seating themselves in a semicircle before me, 
plied me with questions as to where I had been 
all these long, long moons. Had I seen the 
black people of the Solomon Islands — they who 
ate men ? Was it true, the tale they had heard 
of a trading ship coming from America to sell 
the people repeating rifles on long credit ? Had 
I seen the great circus in Nui Silani (New 
Zealand) of which Pili had told them — a circus 
in which one man jumped over four-and-twenty 
horses ? Or was Pili only a liar ? 

*3 



i 7 8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



And then one old dame bent forward, and 
put the question : 

" Why does the American man-of-war come 
here ? Has she come to help our king Malietoa 
to fight the rebels and drive away the Ger- 
mans ? " 

I could only say that I could not tell ; for 
I had been away from Samoa for more than a 
year. 

The ancient lady rolls herself a cigarette in a 
meditative manner, and then looks gloomily out 
before her upon the sea-front. 

" 'Tah ! " she says at last. " It is always the 
same, always, always. 'Tis all talk, talk, talk. 
One day it is, ' Ah, next moon American and 
English soldiers will come, and they will set up 
Malietoa, and the flash of their bayonets shall 
blind his cruel enemies, so that they will shake 
and turn pale ! ' ; or, ' Not next moon, but the 
one after, a big man-of-war will come from 
Peretania, and bring hundreds of red-coated 
fighting men, whose chief will draw a line with 
his sword on the beach at Matafele, and say 
to the Germans, ' Keep thee all there, beyond 
that line, and within thine own bought land ; 
step over but a hand's space and thou shalt hear 



i79 



the rattle of a thousand English guns." But 
they never come — only the men-of-war, whose 
captains say to our chiefs, ' Not this time ; but 
by and by we shall help thee." And then at 
night time they make their ships bright with 
many lights, and the tamaitai papalagi (white 
ladies) from Apia and Matafele put on beautiful 
dresses, and they all dance and sing and laugh, 
and think no more of us Samoans ; and in the 
morning, or in a day, or two days, the ships go 
away, and we Samoans are like fools, and hang 
our heads. Then the Consuls say, ' Hush ! be 
wise and wait ' ; but the Consuls are liars ; one 
gives us fair words and sweet smiles and says, 
* Vitolia (Victoria) is great, she loves you 
Samoans, and will help you ; but you must 
not want to fight the great German nation. 
You must come to us, and we shall send a 
letter to the great chiefs in Peretania (Eng- 
land) and America, and — by and by help will 
come. 

It is impossible to describe the sneering, bitter 
emphasis the old woman gave to her last half- 
a-dozen words, imitating, as she did to perfec- 
tion, the voice of the then British Consul. That 
gentleman is long since dead ; and whilst his 



i8o 



Wild Life in Soutber?j Seas, 



genial social qualities will long be remembered 
by those who knew him, his foolish official acts 
made him many enemies, and caused intense 
bitterness of feeling among the natives. 

The grey-haired dame smoked on in silence, 
and then a tall, lithe-limbed girl rose from 
beside the old woman, and came over to me, 
and, taking the inevitable cigarette from her 
lips, offered it to me. " She is my son's wife," 
explains the old woman, as the pretty creature 
seats herself again ; and then this soft-eyed, 
sweet-voiced girl says, with an innocent, childish 
laugh : " Tah! I love to hear the pa fana (firing 
of guns). My husband took two heads at 
Mulinu'u once. Fighting will come by and 
by, my mother, and your son shall bring you 
' red bread-fruit ' to look at again." 

For the edification of my readers I may 
explain that the term "red bread-fruit" was 
then the Samoan slang for decapitated heads. 
This amiable young lady evidently had a full 
share of the Samoan women's spirit that causes 
them to very often leave the care of their 
children and houses to the very oldest of their 
sex, and follow the fortunes of their husbands 
or lovers to the camp. 



Old Samoa/? Days. 



181 



Another hour passed, and then there came 
a rush of excited children along the narrow, 
shady path that led into the village from the 
northward. " Gafalua is coming," they cried 
pantingly, " and with him there are two officers 
from the ship — a little, dark-faced man with 
a black moustache, and a big, fat man." 

I ran out to meet them, and in a few minutes 

was shaking hands both with Dr. T from 

the warship, and my native friend, the chief. 
The doctor, who was in uniform, was bound for 

Apia, in company with Lieutenant D , to 

make inquiries concerning the outbreak of sick- 
ness there, the commander of the corvette not 
liking to take the ship to Apia until he had 
satisfied himself that there was no risk in so 
doing. The doctor agreed to meet me in Apia 
on the following day, and, if possible, join 
Gafalua and myself in a mountain excursion 
to the other side of the island, where we were 
to remain for a couple of days at the village 
of Safata. 



Early next morning, accompanied by Gafalua, 
his son and daughter, and four or five young 
men and women carrying cooked food for the 



l82 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



journey to Safata, I set out for Apia — a three 
hours' walk. Inquiring for the doctor at the 
American Consulate, I found a note for me 
saying that he and Lieutenant D had re- 
turned to the ship to report that Apia was too 
unhealthy just then for her to make a stay at ; 
also that he would apply for a few days' leave, 
and expected to return in the evening. Leaving 
Gafalua and his followers at the native village 
of Matautu, I returned to my own ship, and 
gathered together a few extra traps for the 
journey. As I was pulled ashore the boat 
had to pass under the stern of a large Sydney 
trading brig, whose captain hailed me, and asked 
me to come aboard. With him were his wife 
and daughter, who were making a visit to Samoa 
after an absence of some years, and, curiously 
enough, that very morning they had been dis- 
cussing means of going to Safata to spend a few 
days there with the resident missionary, who 
was an old friend. To sail round in a cutter 
would mean at least a two days' voyage and 
a vast amount of discomfort. 

< 'Why not come with us?" I suggested. 
" We can leave this evening, sleep at Magiagi " 
(a village a few miles from Apia), " start early 



Old Samoan Days. 



in the morning, and be at Safata in the after- 
noon." 

In five minutes everything was arranged ; the 
two ladies were to meet the rest of the party 
at the Vaisigago ferry, and I hurried ashore, 
delighted at my luck in securing such charming 
companions. Both Mrs. Hollister and her 
daughter spoke Samoan, and were great 
favourites with the natives of the Apia 
district. Early in the afternoon the doctor 
returned — happy with four days' leave — and 
we were at once joined by Gafalua and his 
people. At the ferry we found the two white 
ladies awaiting us, with another addition to our 
party — the half-caste wife of an American store- 
keeper. Then we started. 

Our way lay along the principal roadway or 
street of Apia, as far as the white-walled native 
church, and then made a detour to the left, 
inland. The town of Apia, or properly speak- 
ing, the towns of Apia and Matafele combined, 
are laid out in a very irregular manner ; and the 
main street follows the curves of the beach. 

The sun was somewhat fierce, and we hailed 
with delight the cool, shaded road which lay 
before us after we turned off from the town. 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



It had been raining a few days previously, and 
the middle of the road was somewhat muddy, 
but the side-paths were fairly dry for the 
ladies, who declined the offer of our natives 
to be carried till we reached the first resting- 
place. The soil here was a rich, red loam ; and 
from the beach for nearly two miles inland the 
road lay through banana and taro plantations, 
with here and there small villages inhabited 
by the adherents of Malietoa. Every now and 
then natives would pass us — generally women — 
with loads of taro, yams, or fruit ; and it was 
pleasant to note the courteous manner in w r hich 
they left the dry side-walk and stood in the 
boggy centre of the road while we passed. By 
nearly every one we were greeted with a smile 
and offer of fruit for the ladies, or a coconut 
to drink. 

About two hours after crossing the Vaisigago 
and proceeding in a south-easterly direction, we 
heard the sound of a cataract, and presently 
we again got a sight of the river through the 
trees. We turned off at this spot to look 
at the favourite bathing place of the white 
residents, a deep pool of some fifty yards 
in length, surrounded by a thick, tropical 



Old Samoan Days. 



185 



vegetation. The Vaisigago here was a noisy, 
brawling little stream, and at the head of the 
pool was a gorge, between the black, gloomy 
sides of which the bright, clear water came 
rushing down with many a swirl and hiss, and 
forming in a deep, rocky depression a miniature 
lake. Our carriers laid down their burdens, 
and waited whilst we sat on the edge of the 
pool, to enjoy for a few minutes, the pretty 
sight. The water was full of fish resembling 
English trout ; and there were also two or three 
kinds of a small size, and precisely similar to 
those found in the rivers of Northern Australia. 
One of the natives went down into the creek, 
where the water was shallow, and groping with 
his hands under the boulders, caught two or 
three large shrimps : great fat, brown fellows, 
that jumped about in a most active manner 
when laid on the rocks beside us, making a 
peculiar snapping noise with their huge nippers. 
Taking one up, the native bit its head off, and 
then breaking the body into three or four pieces, 
desired Miss Hollister to throw them into the 
water. The instant the dismembered fragments 
touched the surface there was a rush of fish, and 
the glassy surface of the pool — for in the centre 



i86 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



there was no apparent current — was swirled and 
splashed and eddied about. The doctor was so 
excited at such promising indications of sport 
that he announced his intention of returning to 
Apia, and borrowing a rod and tackle ; but we 
promised him that on our return we should pay 
another visit to the pool, and make a day of it. 
This spot is locally known as " Hamilton's 
Pool,'' being named after the then port pilot, 
Captain Edward Hamilton. Many years ago, 
when H.M.S. Pearl was in Samoa, that ill-fated 
and gallant sailor, Commodore Goodenough, 
who was fated to die by the poisoned arrows 
of the savages of the Santa Cruz Group, 
delighted to make his way here and drink in 
the romantic beauty of the scene. 

But we could not linger. We had still some 
miles to travel ere we reached the bush village 
where we were to rest for the night. Shoulder- 
ing their burdens, our carriers move briskly 
along, and presently we notice that we have 
almost reached the border of the narrow belt of 
littoral that lies at the back of Apia ; for the 
road now presents a gradual but very decided 
ascent. Every now and then we hear the deep 
booming note of the wild pigeons, and slip cart- 



Old Samoa?! Days. 



i8 7 



ridges into our guns in readiness for a chance 
shot, as even at this short distance from the 
town the great, blue-plumaged birds are to be 
met with. The road has become narrower, and 
in the place of the tall, slender coco-palms, 
growing so thickly in the flat country, we see 
all round us the great masoi and tamanu trees, 
towering up high above all their fellows of the 
wood. We meet very few natives now, and 
pass no more plantations. Every now and then 
the fuia, the Polynesian blackbird, utters his 
shrill, sharp note, and flitting in front of us 
perches on an overhanging branch, leaning his 
head on one side in a pert, impudent manner, 
and saucily staring with his beady black eye 
at the intruders. Bird life is plentiful here. 
Flocks of gay, bright little paroquets dart in 
quick flashes of colour among the undergrowth 
of the forest ; while overhead there fills the air 
the soft cooing of thousands of ring-doves. 
Well have the Samoans named the ring-dove 
manu-tagi — the bird that " cries " — for there is 
to their imaginative natures an undercurrent of 
sadness in the gentle cooing notes that fill the 
silent mountain forest with their plaintive 
melody, and which is rendered the more 



i88 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



marked by the shrill scream of the paroquets, 
and the proud, haughty " boom ! " of the red- 
crested pigeon. 

Now we near the village and the deep quiet of 
the forest is broken by sounds like chopping 
and tapping on wood. It is the native women, 
beating out with heavy v/ooden mallets the bark 
of the paper mulberry to make tappa, the native 
cloth. Our natives quicken their steps and 
break into song ; the sounds from the village 
cease, and then we hear plainly enough the soft 
voices of the women borne through the forest 
in an answering chorus of welcome. Ten 
minutes more, the ladies stepping out bravely in 
our midst, and we round the bend of the track, 
and there before us is a pretty little Arcadian- 
Polynesian village of some ten or a dozen 
thatch-covered houses. In the centre stands 
the largest edifice, a great mushroom-roofed 
house, open at the sides, and the floor covered 
with rough but clean mats made from the 
coconut leaf. Seated in the house are some 
five or six women, engaged in making tappa; 
but they hastily lay their implements aside, and 
one, quite an ancient lady, bids us come in ; 
and, as is ever the case in Samoa with European 



V 



Old Samoan Days. 189 

or American travellers, welcomes us. We all 
file in, and in default of chairs or stools sit with 
our backs against the supporting posts of the 
house, whilst the women reach down from 
cross-beams overhead huge bundles of soft white 
mats with gaily-ornamented edges, and spread 
them in the centre of the house. So far, the old 
woman alone has spoken, it being considered 
the height of bad breeding by Samoans for 
any one to speak to or question strangers in 
public, until the chief or chieftainess in autho- 
rity has done so. The mats being spread out, 
and having taken our seats cross-legged thereon, 
Samoan style, the old dame, in a slow, set 
speech, gave us her name, and said that her 
grandson, the chief of the village, with all his 
fighting men, were away at a Fono or native 
political meeting, and would not return till 
night, winding up her remarks by regretting 
that we had sent no notice of our coming, so 
that food and houses might be made ready for 
us ; but that if our " young men " would assist 
she would have a pig killed and get food ready 
instantly. 

No sooner said than done ! Up jumps 
Talamai, one of our carriers, and disappears at 



190 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

the rear of the houses ; and then arises a horrible 
squealing, and much laughter from the women 
and girls, as a small black porker is dragged 
before the dame to inspect. She gives a nod. 
Thump ! a blow from a heavy club terminates 
the animal's woes, and the carcase is dragged 
off by our carriers and the women, many more 
of whom are now present, having come in from 
the plantations with vegetables and fruit. 

Then how the native girls cluster round our 
two fair fellow-travellers, and press fruit and 
young coconuts upon them ; already they have 
made a couch of layers of tappa^ with a soft roll 
of finely-worked mats for a pillow, and the two 
white ladies recline thereon and look happy, and 
talk away in Samoan to the girls. 

So we smoke and chat till a wild-eyed urchin 
calls out to the women, and announces that the 
meal is ready to be taken from the oven of leaves 
and stones. Away run our hostesses, and in 
five minutes return with roasted pork, fish, taro 
and baked plantains, which are laid out on 
platters made of interwoven coconut leaves. In 
the centre is placed a great pile of green coco- 
nuts. The two ladies are served with food on 
their couch ; but the doctor and myself seat 



Old Samoan Days. 191 

ourselves cross-legged on the ground and eat in 
thorough native fashion. Our entertainers sit 
each one behind a guest, and with a fue (or fly- 
flap) brush away the flies. Never a word is 
spoken by any of them except in a whisper ; 
the young unmarried girls devote themselves to 
Mrs. and Miss Hollister, and leave us to be 
waited upon by the older women. This is in- 
tended as a special mark of respect to us ; 
for to receive attention and consideration from 
elderly people in Samoa is looked upon as a 
graceful compliment. 

Our meal finished, we fill and light our 
pipes, and " lay around loose," as the doctor 
calls it, to watch the first shadows of sunset 
close round the little village. Darkness comes 
on very quickly in these latitudes ; and soon 
from every house the evening fires send fitful 
flashes of light through their interwoven sides. 
The wild-eyed, Italian-looking boy takes a tappa 
mallet and strikes a long wooden cylinder 
standing out in the gravelled village square. It 
is the signal for evening prayer ; and then, ere 
the rolling echoes of this primitive substitute for 
a church bell have ceased to reverberate adown 
the gloom-enshrouded forest, the women and 



192 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



children gather in the house, and decorously 
seat themselves round the sides. One of our 
carriers is the young Amazonian who made the 
pleasant remark anent the " red bread-fruit " at 
Gafalua's village. She looks at her Pese Viiga 
(hymn-book), and says " Pese lua sefulu " — 
hymn 20 — and then her clear bird-like notes 
lead the singing. 

" Well, they certainly can sing," says the 
doctor, as the melodious voices of the women 
blend with the deeper tones of our stalwart car- 
riers in a translation of " The Living Fountain." 
The singing ceases, and then one of the carriers, 
a big, burly, black-bearded fellow, bends his head 
and utters a short prayer. The demeanour of 
these simple natives was a revelation to the 
doctor ; and at the conclusion of the short 
service he asked them to show him some of their 
books. They brought him great, heavily-bound 
translations of the Old and New Testament, 
hymn-books, and others of a devotional cha- 
racter ; published in London by the British and 
Foreign Bible Society ; and, indeed, the doctor 
admitted that the knowledge displayed by some 
of the women made him " feel rather down 
in Scripture history." 



Old Samoan Days. 



J 93 



Presently from out the darkness of the forest 
depths sounds the murmuring of voices. It is 
the men of the village returning from the Fono. 
Nearer and nearer they come, and now the 
women make the fires blaze up brightly by 
throwing on them the shells of coconuts. Here 
are the men — twenty of them — and a brave 
sight they make, as with a steady tramp, they 
march two deep over the gravelly square, the 
firelight playing fitfully on their oil-glisten- 
ing, copper-coloured bodies, and shouldered 
rifles. Every man is in full fighting fig — bodies 
oiled, hair tied up over the crown of the head 
with a narrow band of Turkey red cloth, and 
round their waists broad leather belts with cart- 
ridge pouches. Some carry those long, ugly, 
but business-like looking implements, the Nifa- 
oti) or death knife, used expressly for decapita- 
tion. A few have heavy revolvers of a superior 
pattern, and tied round the brawny arms and 
legs of all are ornaments of white shells or 
green and scarlet leaves intermingled. The 
chief calls halt, and then in a semi-military 
fashion dismisses them, and each seeks his house, 
their women-kind following. 

Stooping his tall frame, the chief enters the 



i 9 4 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



big house, and in a quiet, dignified manner 
shakes hands with his visitors, and acknowledges 
former acquaintance with me by holding my 
hand and patting gently on the back of it — a 
custom that is followed in some parts of Poly- 
nesia, denoting pleasure at meeting a friend. 
He does not shake hands with Mrs. Hollister 
and her daughter, but, like a well-bred Samoan, 
sits himself cross-legged in front of them a few 
paces distant, and, lowering his eyes, gives the 
proper Samoan greeting to women of position, 
Uae afio rnai, tamaitai, which rendered in Eng- 
lish is, " Your highnesses have come." His 
mother brings him food, and then we sit round 
and smoke in silence whilst the doctor fumbles 
about our traps and produces a couple of bottles 
and glasses, and uncorking one asks the chief to 
" take a taste." His grandmother frowns dis- 
approval as he pours out a " nip " that would 
please a second mate, and then, the big man, 
looking at us with a smile, says, To fa> tamaitai 
ma alii (good-night, ladies and gentlemen), rolls 
himself in his white tappa covering, and placing 
his head on a curiously-shaped bamboo pillow, 
is soon asleep. Simultaneously we follow suit. 
The ladies, in accordance with a Samoan custom, 



Old Samoan Days. 



195 



retire to sleep in a separate house inhabited by 
the Ana luma, or unmarried women, who escort 
them thither by the light of a torch. 

II. 

We were awakened at sunrise by the villagers, 
and whilst the three ladies were making their 
toilettes, the doctor and I, accompanied by 
Gafalua and the chief of the village, went to 
bathe in the mountain stream near by. This 
was a feeder of the Vaisigago, and, like that 
stream, its waters were of a surpassing clear- 
ness, and full of small fish and prawns. Re- 
turning to the village we found our breakfast 
awaiting us, and everything in readiness for a 
start. Half an hour later we set out, escorted 
for the first six or eight miles by the young 
women and children of the village, who insisted 
upon relieving our carriers of their burdens. 
About noon we reached the summit of the 
mountain range which traverses Upolu from 
east to west, and here we rested awhile before 
beginning the descent to the southern shore, and 
to say farewell to our companions from Magiagi, 
many of whom wished to accompany us to 
Safata ; but on account of there being ill-blood 



196 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



between the two places they dared not. Only a 
few months before, so they told us, a war party 
of Safatans had made an attack on their village, 
but had been beaten off ; some heads were taken 
on both sides, and the Safatans had retreated, 
vowing vengeance. 

After lunch, which we ate under a huge 
banyan tree, we began our march again, and in 
a few minutes emerged from the gloom of the 
mountain forest out upon the verge of a plateau 
overlooking the coast for a dozen miles east and 
west. But much as we desired to stay awhile 
and feast ourselves upon the gorgeous panorama 
of tropical beauty that lay beneath us, we could 
not, for there were dark clouds sweeping up 
from the north, and a deluge of rain might fall 
upon us at any moment. So off we started 
down the steep and slippery path, catching hold 
of vines, hanging creepers, and branches of 
trees, to save ourselves from getting to the base 
of the mountain too quickly. Gafalua had sent 
Vaitupu and her brother on to announce the 
approach of a malaga (a party of visitors), and 
soon after we reached the level ground, and just 
as the first drops of rain began to fall, we heard 
the sounds of a native drum beating — the people 



Old Samoan Days, 



197 



were being summoned together to make prepa- 
rations. Soon we gained the outskirts of Safata, 
and from every house we received invitations 
to enter and rest till the rain ceased, but we 
pressed on, and a quarter of an hour later 
entered the village itself, where we were warmly 
welcomed by the chief of the place. The three 
ladies found the missionary and his wife awaiting 
them, and promising to call upon them at the 
mission-house on the following day, the doctor 
and I bade them goodbye, and took up our 
quarters with Gafalua and his two children in a 
house specially set apart for us. A bowl of 
kava was being prepared, and this we drank 
with our entertainers, and then prepared to 
make ourselves comfortable for the night. As 
the mosquitoes were bad, our host had rigged up 
a screen of fine muslin for each of the white men, 
a large one for Gafalua and his children, and 
many smaller ones for the rest of our company. 
During the night the rain fell in torrents, but 
we heeded it not, for we were tired out with 
our twenty miles' walk, and the natives per- 
ceiving our fatigue left us to ourselves at an 
early hour, after arranging a shooting and 
fishing excursion on the following morning. 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



A lovely sunrise greeted us when we awoke, 
and after eating a hurried breakfast of roast 
fowl and taro, we started, accompanied by 
Gafalua, his two children, and one or two Safata 
natives. We were to fish along the edges of 
the reef at a spot where it formed a miniature 
lagoon, and where, we were assured by Vaitupu, 
who knew the place well, we should have plenty 
of sport. 

The sweet-scented masoi and cedar trees that 
fringed the forest, extending from the foot of 
the mountain to the beach, gave shelter from 
the rays of the sun to hundreds of the great 
blue-plumaged, scarlet-crested pigeons, and our 
progress was somewhat retarded in picking up 
the prizes that fell to the doctor's breech-loader. 
Within an hour or so of leaving the village we 
had secured enough to satisfy us all, and the boy 
fairly staggered under a load of fat, juicy birds. 
On reaching the beach we found a small native 
house, built under a giant bread-fruit tree, and 
untenanted. Into this we bundled our belong- 
ings, and set about rigging up our fishing- 
tackle. The doctor, taking his cue from me, 
elected to fish with a hand line, looking aghast 
at the gigantic proportions of the rod offered 



Old Samoa n Days. 



199 



to him by Gafalua, who, in his turn, gazed with 
astonishment at the doctor as he noticed him 
tying a large steel " Kirby " to the end of his 
line. " No good," says Gafalua, " fish Samoa 
no like black hook ; Samoa fish-hook very 
good," and displaying to the doctor a large 
mother-of-pearl fish hook, a marvel of ingenuity 
and strength. However, the doctor thought 
his way best, and so off we go. My young 
friends had not forgotten to bring me a pair of 
native sandals, woven from the tough fibre of 
the coconut, and once much used in Samoa ; so, 
discarding my boots, I tied on the sandals in the 
orthodox manner, eliciting from the natives the 
laudatory exclamation, Si tagata Samoa, lava — 
" Like a son of the soil." 

Then, all being in readiness, we start for the 
reef. 

The deep, calm waters of the pool are 
protected on three sides by the coral reef ; on 
the seaward side there is a narrow passage, just 
wide enough for a small craft to sail through, 
and through this the spent billows of the Pacific 
roll lazily and sink to rest in the quiet depths 
of the lagoon waters. We make our way over 



200 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the dry coral (for it is low tide), and take up 
our positions where we can drop our lines 
directly beneath us into the water. 

The doctor stands on a little knoll of coral 
nearest the beach. Gafalua, his son and daughter 
and myself go further out towards the outer 
reef, and we are just about to drop our lines 
when a cry of alarm from the doctor is followed 
by a shriek of laughter from the girl, as a huge, 
yellow eel, with red eyes and snaky head, raises 
its sinuous body from out its coral niche beneath 
the surgeon's feet, and shows its glistening, 
needle-like fangs. The doctor seizes a piece 
of coral and strikes it a stunning blow on the 
head, and his attendant native gives the hideous 
sea-serpent the coup de grace by snicking off its 
head with his long knife. Tough customers, 
these eels ; minus his head he still wriggles and 
twists his greasy, orange-yellow body about, as 
if losing his head were a matter of no particular 
moment. The doctor baits his hook with a small 
bit of fish and throws out his line. Gafalua, 
poising himself on a little coral knoll, lowers 
his rod and trails the shining pearl-shell hook, 
innocent of bait, backwards and forwards 
through the water, and then Yaitupu calls out 



Old Samoan Days, 201 

triumphantly, " Aue ! my father is first," and 
sure enough the stout pole in the chiefs hand 
is bending and straining under the weight of a 
heavy fish. What a splashing and froth he 
makes as he comes to the surface, and then with 
a dexterous swing Gafalua lands a magnificent 
blue and yellow groper — weight about 10 lbs. 
Beside us now stands Vaitupu, gaf? in hand, 
her dark eyes dancing with excitement, for the 
doctor has wagered me a dollar he lands a fish 
before I do. 

" Here, here, O, my dear friend," cries 
Vaitupu, " drop your line here ; down there 
in that deep blue valley between the rocks are 
the great big gatala (rock cod). Oh, such 
fish, as big as a shark." 

Baiting with a small y coloured 

fish, I drop my line into the " blue valley," 
while the girl and I watch the bait sinking 
slowly, slowly down, till it is almost lost to 
sight. A dark, misty shape rises up from 
the depths below, and Vaitupu clutches my 
arm. 

" Aue I it is a gatala ; strike, strike, my 
friend." 

No need for that, Vaitupu ; a sharp tug at 



202 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the line nearly capsizes me, and gatala makes a 
bolt. My tackle is, as the doctor says, thick 
enough to throw a buffalo, so no fear on that 
score ; and now, with a soft chuckle of delight, 
the girl lends her aid, and we pull up hand over 
hand. 

" A ne ! " says the little maid ; " surely it is 
the king of all gatala, it is so heavy." 

Whiz ! and away he goes again, nearly taking 
the line away from us ; gently now, he's turned 
again, and we haul up quickly. Ah ! there he 
is in sight now ; a great mottled-scaled fish with 
gleams of gold along his broad, noble back. 
" Good boy," calls out the doctor, "stick to him," 
and the two natives give a loud Aue ! of satis- 
faction as the fish comes to the surface, struggling 
and splashing like a young alligator. Bravely 
done, Vaitupu ! She stoops over the coral ledge, 
thrusts her right hand under his great gaping 
gills, and planting herself in a sitting posture, 
hangs on right bravely, although the great 
strength of the fish nearly drags her over the 
reef. Leaping from knoll to knoll over the 
distance that separates us, Gafalua comes to our 
aid, and then reaching down his great brawny, 
brown hand, he too seizes gatala under the gills, 



Old Samoan Days. 



203 



lifts him clear, and tosses him, lashing and 
struggling savagely, on the reef. lo triumphe ; 
or rather Aue ! We have conquered ; and the 
blushing, panting Vaitupu smiles appreciation to 
the doctor's encomiums of her pluck. 

" Hurrah!" exclaims the medico, as he grasps 
the slippery prize with both hands by the tail, 
and attempts to lift it up. " What a pity we 
can't take him back to Apia with us, and 
see him served up on the corvette's table. I 
guess he weighs forty pounds, too, or more." 

We take up our positions again, and now 
both Gafalua and the other natives land fish fast 
enough ; mostly a species of trumpeter about 
4lb. or 61b. weight. The doctor gazes sadly 
at his line, not a sign of a bite yet, and turns 
for solace to his cigar case, when he starts 
up and gives an excited jerk at his line. 
" Hurrah ! got one this time," he calls out, 
and some ten fathoms away, near the surface 
of the water, we see the silvery sheen of a 
long slender fish like an attenuated salmon. 
An eccentric fellow this, for instead of allowing 
himself to be pulled in like any well-regulated 
member of his tribe, he executes some astonish- 
ing gymnastic feats, jumping clear out of the 



204 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



water and coming down again with a sounding 
thwack, then darting with lightning speed to 
port and then to starboard ; and, as he realises 
it is not a joke, making a wild dive deep down 
into the coral caverns of the lagoon. But 
the doctor keeps a steady pull, and with a 
cry of triumph he lands his fish at last 
upon the rocks. 

" Aue /" shouts the lively Yaitupu. "Oh, 
Mist Fo Mai (medicine man) ; oh, clever 
American, you, too, are a luckv man thus to 
catch such a fish with a steel hook." 

And now the calm waters of the pool begin 
to swell, and gently lap the sides of the coral 
rocks ; it is the tide turning, and the place 
seems alive with fish of all sorts of colours and 
shapes. Quickly as we drop our lines, there is 
a tug and a splash, and every one of our party 
is too actively employed on his own account to 
heed the prowess of his companions. Half an 
hour or more and we retire from the field of our 
exploits to the little house on the beach, and, 
whilst resting on the mats, have the pleasurable 
satisfaction of seeing the boy laboriously 
dragging our captures over the coral reef and 
depositing them on the beach. 



Old Samoan Days. 



205 



Grateful enough it is to rest after our labours 
and eat the cold pigeon and taro and bread- 
fruit, which the nimble fingers of Vaitupu 
spreads out on extemporised platters of coconut 
leaves. She is now at home with the doctor, 
and laughs gaily as she sees him endeavouring to 
open a young coconut. Her tiputa is thrown 
aside over one shoulder, revealing all the budding 
beauty of coming womanhood, and round her 
head she has already entwined a wreath of 
scarlet hibiscus flowers, gathered from a bush 
that flaunts its wealth of flowers and foliage 
near by. 

" Father," she says with a laugh to the giant 
Samoan, " let us wait here till it is cool, and 
this clever gentleman from the American fighting 
ship will tell us tola about many things ; of 
the great guns that load in the * belly ' ; of the 
iron devil-fish (torpedoes) that swim under the 
sea, and go under the bottoms of ships and bite 
them, and then blow them up, so that all the 
men are drowned ; and ask him if he has ever 
killed any people ; and if he has a wife in 
America, and is she young and pretty ; and 
could the American fighting ship sink the big 
German man-of-war that was at Apia last year, 



2o6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



whose captain had red whiskers and a pot 
belly?" 

And there we lay and smoked and talked, 
and gazed sleepily out upon the sparkling sea 
with the long line of foaming, reef-bound surf 
far below us, till the first air of the land breeze 
crept down to us from the mountains. Then, 
shouldering our burdens, we returned to the 
village to watch an evening dance, and then 
sleep peacefully till the morn. 

The morning for our return to Apia broke 
brightly, with the booming of the feeding 
pigeons, and the shrill cries of the gaily-hued 
paroquets, as they flitted from bough to bough 
in the bread-fruit grove surrounding the town. 
The doctor had been up and away as the first 
streak of sunrise pierced through the lattice- 
worked sides of the house, to walk to the 
mission house and bid farewell to the ladies, 
who had sent us word that they had decided 
to stay at Safata for a week. As Gafalua and 
myself were having our breakfast, we saw him 
striding down the leafy path in company with 
the missionary, who had returned with him to 
say goodbye. We made quite a strong party 



Old Samoan Days. 



207 



going back, as, although we left the ladies 
behind at the mission, we found awaiting us 
some twenty natives of both sexes, who begged 
to be allowed to join our party, as they had 
business in Apia. The more the merrier, we 
say ; and as we have already said farewell to 
the old chief and the principal people of the 
town, we now rub noses with the chief ladies 
thereof, and depart amidst a chorus of good 
wishes. 

But I must not forget. It was Gafalua's 
intention to leave Vaitupu with some of her 
Safata relatives for a few weeks, and with 
tears of vexation dimming her eyes she had said 
farewell to us at the village. The girl had 
quite won our hearts by her amiable and 
pleasing manners, and so the doctor and I, 
joining forces, begged her father to let the 
"little maid" cross the island again, and see 
the fighting ship with its guns that " loaded 
from behind." 

"Only let me go with you," she pleaded, 
" and I shall be as silent as the dead. When 
we get to Apia, is not my cousin, Manumea, 
there ? And I can stay there with her while 
you, my father, go to the olo (forts) of the Tua 



208 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Masaga. But I, oh, most of all, I want to see 
the big man-of-war." 

The burly chief looked at his daughter, and 
then at myself and the doctor, and turning to 
the girl, patted her hand affectionately. "Thou 
shall come, little one," he said at last, with a 
smile. 

We followed the same road that had brought 
us to Safata, and as we struck deeper into the 
leaf-covered arcades of the forest, we lost the 
low murmuring of the breakers as they dashed 
upon the outer barrier reef, and heard the 
sudden calls of the pigeons resounding and 
echoing all around us. The morning dew 
was still heavy upon the trees, and as the 
birds flew away from or alighted upon them, 
a shower of pearly drops fell to the ground ; 
then ever and anon we heard the shrill, cackling 
note of the wild cock, as with outspread wings 
and scurrying feet he fled before us to his 
hiding-place in some vine-clad covert. Two 
miles more, and we had crossed the narrow 
belt of littoral, and were ascending the mountain 
path, and now the vegetation grew denser at 
every step ; for the sides of the mountain were 
clothed with a verdant jungle through which 



Ola Samoan Days, 209 

the rays even of the mid-day sun could scarcely 
penetrate. The path was, however, well worn, 
although in some places very slippery and 
precipitous. We envied the ease with which 
our native friends made the ascent, whilst we, 
with our boots clogged with the tough, adhesive 
red clay, every now and then slipped and fell. 

An hour before noon we had reached the 
summit of the range, and with a sigh of relief 
assented to Gafalua's suggestion to rest for an 
hour or so. And so we leant our weary backs 
against the buttressed trunk of a great white- 
barked tree, and enjoyed to our full the 
beautiful scene below. 

The trade wind was very fresh, and had 
tipped with "white horses" the blue bosom 
of the Pacific ; but away to the southward, 
where the outer reef reared its solid barrier 
against the ocean roll, there showed within its 
long sweeping curve the green, placid waters 
of shallow depth that glinted and sparkled in 
the tropic sun, and about the distant rush and 
roar of the breakers as they fell upon the reef 
ascended a misty haze that hovered and wavered 
perpetually above the swirling sheets of foam 
sweeping across the coral rock. Sometimes, 

15 



2IO 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



when the waving branches above our heads 
ceased their soughing for a moment or two, 
we heard from seaward a faint murmuring 
sound that we knew was the voice of the ocean 
borne to us on the breeze. Far down below us 
we saw through an opening in the forest the 
thatched houses of the village, and our thoughts 
went back to the kindly, honest-hearted people 
who dwelt there. To the northward of us was 
hilly, undulating country, and from the sides of 
the lesser hills we saw clouds of smoke ascend- 
ing, showing that the men of the bush villages 
were at work clearing their yam plantations. 
It was a scene like to many such that may be 
viewed almost anywhere in the high moun- 
tainous isles of the Pacific, but to us at that 
moment it seemed the very perfection of tropic 
loveliness. 

We reached Apia as darkness fell ; and then, 
bidding goodbye to the doctor and Gafalua and 
the little maid, I hurried aboard our schooner, 
and found that she was only awaiting my return 
to sail at daylight. 

And as the red sun shot up from the sea, 
the sharp bows of our little vessel cleft the 



Old Samoan Days. 



21 I 



swelling blue as she stood away northward and 
westward toward the distant Carolines, and 
long before noon Upolu was but a misty 
outline astern. 



The King's Artillerymen. 



THE story of the cutting-off of the 
London privateer Tort-au-Prince by the 
natives of Lifuka in the Friendly Islands, in 
1805, is pretty well known to students of the 
earlier history of New South Wales, for a full 
report of the massacre figures among the official 
records of the settlement. The Port-au-Prince, 
it may be mentioned, had in the earlier part of 
her voyage along the coast of South America 
captured a number of Spanish prizes, two of 
which had been despatched with prize crews to 
Port Jackson, where they arrived safely, and 
were duly sold a few months after the former 
messmates of those that brought them there had 
been savagely slaughtered in the Friendlies. 
The events of the Port-au-Prince s remarkable 
voyage were subsequently made known by the 



The King's Artillerymen. 



213 



publication in London, in 18 10, of Mr. William 
Mariner's "Tonga Islands." This Mariner was 
a youthful friend of Captain Duck, the master 
of the privateer, and seems to have been spared 
by the natives on account of the friendly feeling 
entertained for him by the leading chief — Finau 
— and a lesser chief named Vaka-ta-bula. Some 
others of the crew who happened to be on shore 
at the time of the massacre of the rest of the 
Port-au-Prince 's company were also spared, and 
these men, together with young Mariner, were 
afterwards employed by Finau in aiding him to 
conquer the people of Tongatabu, the main 
island of the Friendly Group ; and it is from 
Mr. Mariner's graphic narrative of his five 
years' sojourn in the islands that the following 
particulars are taken. 

A few weeks after the destruction of the 
greater number of the unfortunate crew of the 
privateer, Finau intimated to the survivors his 
intention of conquering Tongatabu, with whose 
people he was at variance, and that, as the 
carronades of the privateer, with plenty of 
ammunition, had been saved, he wished the 
English sailors to take charge of the guns, and 
serve them in the reduction of the principal 



214 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



fortress at Nukualofa, the capital of Tongatabu. 
With that object in view, Finau, accompanied 
by the pick of his warriors and Mariner and 
fifteen other Englishmen, sailed from Lifuka, 
in the Haapai Group, in a number of large war 
canoes. 

The site of that fortress is still visible, and 
a brief description of what it was like in 1806 
will be of interest. " It occupied about five 
acres of ground, and its northern wall was 
situated about fifty or sixty fathoms from the 
sea beach. The walls were strongly built of 
upright posts, with a wickerwork of reeds 
between, supported from the inside by timbers 
from six to nine inches in diameter, situated a 
foot and a half distant from each other ; to 
these the reed work was firmly lashed by tough 
cinnet, made from the husk of the coconut. 
The fencing was nine feet in height, but each 
post rose a foot or so higher. There were four 
large entrances, as well as several smaller ones, 
secured on the inside by horizontal sliding 
beams of the tough wood of the coconut tree. 
Over each door, as well as at other places, were 
erected platforms even with the top of the 



The Kings Artillerymen. 



215 



fencing, supported chiefly on the inside, but 
projecting forward to the extent of two or three 
feet. These platforms were about nine feet 
square, and situated fifteen yards distant from 
each other ; they were used for the garrison to 
stand on, to shoot arrows, or throw down large 
stones, and, more particularly, to prevent a 
storming party from setting fire to the walls 
of the fortress. In front and on each side 
these platforms were themselves defended by a 
reed work six feet high, with an opening in 
front and others on either hand for the greater 
convenience of throwing spears, stones, etc. 
The lower fencing had also openings for a 
similar purpose. On the outside was a ditch 
nearly twelve feet deep, and as much broad ; 
this, at a little distance, was encompassed by 
another fencing similar to the first, with plat- 
forms, etc., on the outside of which there was 
a second ditch. The earth dug out of these 
ditches formed a bank on each side, serving to 
deepen them. In conclusion, the shape of the 
whole fortress was round, and both inner and 
outer fencings were profusely ornamented with 
white pule shells." 



2l6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



Immediately upon the arrival of Finau with 
his fleet in Nukualofa Harbour the expedition 
disembarked. Eight of the fifteen Englishmen, 
with young Mariner, were armed with muskets 
taken from the captured privateer, and these at 
once opened a fire of musketry upon the enemy, 
who had sallied out of the fortress to oppose the 
landing. So effectively were the eight muskets 
handled that Finau soon succeeded in landing 
his troops. The first volley killed three and 
wounded several of the enemy, and a second 
threw them into such dismay that in five 
minutes only forty of the bravest remained to 
contest the landing, the rest retreating into 
the fortress. In the meantime the seven other 
Englishmen had dismounted the Port-au-Prince 's 
carronades from their carriages on the canoes 
and slung them to stout poles, and, conveyed 
by a number of natives, the guns were carried 
across the shallow water on the reef to the 
shore. The rest of Finau's troops being then 
disembarked (4,000 in all says Mariner), the 
Englishmen again mounted the carronades, and 
a regular fire was begun at short range upon 
the fortress. 

" Seated in an English chair taken from the 



The King's Artillerymen. 



217 



cabin of the Port-au-Prince, Finau took his 
station upon a portion of the reef not covered 
by the water, and watched the cannonade with 
intense interest. Much as he desired to lead 
his men to the assault, his chiefs would not 
allow him to expose his person by going any 
nearer. The fire of the carronades was kept up 
for an hour ; in the meantime, as it did not 
appear to do all the mischief to the exterior of 
the fortress (owing to the yielding nature of the 
materials) that the King expected, he sent for 
Mr. Mariner, and expressed his disappointment. 
The young sailor said that no doubt there was 
mischief enough done on the inside of the fort, 
wherever there were resisting bodies, such as 
canoes, the posts and beams of houses, etc., and 
that it was already very evident that the 
besieged Nukualofa people had no reason to 
think lightly of the effect of the artillery, seeing 
that they had already greatly slackened their 
exertions, not half the number of arrows being 
now discharged from the fort ; and, in his 
opinion, there were many slain lying within its 
walls. 

" Finau was not satisfied, however, with his 
white artillerymen, but resolved to make an 



2l8 



Wila Life in Southern Seas. 



assault, and set fire to the place, for which 
purpose a number of torches, made from the 
split spathes of the coconut palm, were pre- 
pared and lighted. An attack was then made 
upon the first line of fencing and entrenchments, 
which were, however, so weakly defended that 
they were soon captured, and one of the door- 
posts having been shot away, an easy entrance 
was obtained to the inner fencing. This, in 
many places, was not defended, and towards 
these spots the storming party rushed with 
lighted torches, whilst the enemy were kept 
engaged elsewhere. The conflagration spread 
rapidly on every side ; and as the besieged 
endeavoured to make their escape, their brains 
were knocked out by a second column of Finau's 
troops, stationed at the back of the fortress for 
that purpose. During all this time the English- 
men kept up a regular fire with unshotted guns, 
merely to intimidate the enemy. At last a 
general assault was made, and the conquerors, 
club in hand, entered the place from several 
quarters, and slew without mercy all they met 
— men, women, and children. The scene was 
truly horrible. The war-whoop shouted by 
the combatants, the heartrending screams of the 



The Kings Artillerymen. 



219 



women and children, the groans of the wounded, 
the number of the dead, and the fierceness of 
the conflagration formed a picture almost too 
distracting and awful for the mind steadily to 
contemplate. Some, with a kind of sullen and 
stupid resignation, offered no resistance, but 
waited for the hand of fate to despatch them, 
no matter in what mode ; others, that were 
already lying on the ground wounded, were 
struck with spears and beaten about with clubs 
by boys who followed the expedition to be 
trained to the horrors of war, and who delighted 
in the opportunity of gratifying their ferocious 
and cruel disposition. Every house within the 
great fortress that was not on fire was plundered 
of its contents, and thus, in a few hours, the fort 
of Nukualofa, which had obstinately and bravely 
resisted every attack for eleven years or more, 
was completely destroyed. 

" As soon as Finau came within the fort, and 
saw several large canoes which had been carried 
there by the garrison, shattered to pieces by 
the round shot, and discovered a number of 
legs and arms lying around, and three hundred 
and fifty bodies stretched upon the ground, he 
expressed his wonder and astonishment at the 



220 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



dreadful effect of the guns. Addressing his 
men, he thanked them for their bravery, and 
Mr. Mariner and his companions in particular 
for the great assistance rendered by them. 

' ' Some few of the enemy, who had escaped 
the general slaughter, were taken prisoners. 
They gave a curious description of the effect of 
the guns. They declared that when a cannon 
ball entered a house it did not proceed straight 
forward, but went all round the place, as if 
seeking for men to kill ; it then passed out of 
the house and entered another, still in search of 
food for its vengeance, and so on to a third, etc. 
Sometimes one would strike the great corner 
post of a house and bring it all down together. 
The garrison chiefs, seeing all this dreadful 
mischief going forward, rendered still more 
tremendous by their own imaginations, sat in 
consultation upon one of the large canoes just 
mentioned, and came to a determination to rush 
out upon the white men and take possession of 
the guns. This was scarcely resolved upon 
when a shot struck the canoe on which they 
were seated and shattered it in pieces. This so 
damped their courage that they ran for security 
to one of the inner houses of the garrison, only 



The Kings Artillerymen. 



221 



to see their men deserting them on all sides, and 
fleeing in terror from the dreadful round shot." 

One incident in connection with this affair is 
also related by Mr. Mariner, who says that one 
of Finau's Fijian bodyguard, who had no doubt 
been present at the cutting-off of the Port-au- 
Prince, had taken from on board an earthenware 
fish-strainer, " such as is laid in the bottom of 
dishes when fish is brought to table. With this 
implement he had made himself a sort of breast- 
plate, and donned it at the assault upon the fort ; 
but unluckily it happened that an arrow pierced 
him directly through the hole which is commonly 
in the middle of such strainers." The wound 
laid him up eight months, and he never after- 
wards (in Mr. Mariner's time) was able to hold 
himself perfectly erect. 

The last time that the fortress of Nukualofa 
came into prominence again in connection with 
white men was when Captain Crocker, of H. M.S. 
Favourite > was killed near there in 1842, when 
leading his men to succour the youthful King 
George, whose kingdom was in a state of 
rebellion. The result was most disastrous, for 
not only was he repulsed, but the rebels captured 
two guns as well, 



" Leviathan" 



WHALING in the Southern Ocean and 
among the placid waters of the Pacific 
Isles may now be counted among the lost arts ; 
and yet well within the memory of many living 
men it flourished and was the main attraction 
that brought many a ship to the Southern Seas. 
And the brave and skilful whalemen of those 
days reaped such golden harvests from their 
dangerous toil, that those people who know not 
of these things would scarce credit the true 
stories that are told of fortunes made by whalers 
in the glorious days of the "thirties," " forties," 
and " fifties." 

Yet, nowadays, whales are nearly if not quite 
as plentiful as they were then ; but where are 
the whalers ? And where is the once flourishing 
industry, and why is it now non-existent save 



Leviathan. 



223 



for two or three poorly equipped and manned 
whaleships from Tasmania, and the shore whaling 
parties of Norfolk Island ? A glance at such 
records as exist of whaling in the early days 
makes still more remarkable its decadence at 
this end of the century. 

Even as far back as Dampier (1699) whales 
were known to be plentiful in the two Pacifies. 
" The sea is plentifully stocked with the largest 
whales that I ever saw," wrote the scholarly 
buccaneer. But this knowledge was not turned 
to account until 1 79 1 ; and this is how it came 
about. 

An enterprising London shipowner, named 
Enderby, fitted out the Amelia^ and sent her 
round Cape Horn to endeavour to discover the 
sperm whaling grounds. She left England in 
September, 1788, and returned in March, 1790, 
with 139 tuns of sperm oil on board. The news 
spread, and a year later half a dozen American 
whalers were cruising along the coasts of Chili 
and Peru, and there was a great increase in the 
quantity of oil imported into Great Britain. 
Captain Phillip, who commanded the ships of 
the "First Fleet," sent to Australia in 1788, 
had also reported having seen a " vast number 



224 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



of very large whales " on the passage out, and 
in July, 1790, while writing home on the vast 
potentialities for wealth that existed for those 
who would enter upon the business of whaling, 
mentioned that only a few days previously " a 
large spermacetty whale " had made its appear- 
ance in Sydney Harbour, capsized a boat and 
drowned a midshipman and two marines. 

In the month of October, 1791, a convict 
transport named the Britannia, and owned by 
Mr. Enderby, arrived in Sydney Cove with her 
cargo of misery. She formed one of the "Third 
Fleet," and was commanded by a Mr. Thomas 
Melville. In the " Historical Records of New 
South Wales" there is a despatch from Governor 
Phillip which embodies a letter from Mr. 
Melville to his enterprising owners, the Messrs. 
Enderby, from which we learn that the Bri- 
tannia, after doubling the south-west cape of 
Van Dieman's Land, " saw a huge sperm whale 
off Maria Island," but saw no more till within 
fifteen leagues of Port Jackson, when there 
came great numbers about the ship. " We 
sailed through different shoals of them from 
twelve o'clock in the day until after sunset. 
They were all round the horizon as far as we 



Leviathan. 



225 



could see from the masthead. ... I saw a very 
great prospect of establishing a fishery upon 
this coast." That was over a hundred and six 
years ago, and at the present time, during 
certain months of the year when the whales 
are travelling northward to the Bampton Shoals 
and the islands of the East Indian Archipelago, 
the same sight may be seen from any headland 
on the Australian mainland ; for to-day the 
whales are as plentiful and as fearless of human 
foes as they were then. But, alas ! the ships and 
the men are gone. 

Melville, the master of the Britannia, was, 
however, a shrewd fellow, and as soon as he 
had got clear of his cargo of 1 50 convicts, he 
v/ent to Governor Phillip and asked him to 
expedite his ship's departure so that he might 
cruise for whales even with the poor equipment 
he could secure in Sydney. He and his officers 
had tried to keep both their discovery and in- 
tentions in regard thereto a secret, but several 
of his ship's company were not so reticent, and 
when the Britannia's bluff old bows splashed 
into the sweeping billows of the Pacific four 
other ships followed almost in her wake. These 
were the Matilda, William and Ann, Salamander, 

16 



226 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



and the Policy, belonging to Hurry Brothers, 
of London. Reporting varying degrees of 
success, the vessels (except the Mary Ann) 
returned to Port Jackson in November and 
December. From that time the gallant Phillip, 
in his despatches of 1 79 1 and 1792, makes 
frequent mention of the experiment, which he 
justly considered was not a fair trial of the 
Australian seas, although one reason he gave 
for want of success was not correct. He com- 
plained that " the ships had not stayed out 
long enough." The real reasons, however, 
were that while spermaceti and " right " whales 
were plentiful enough, the whalers had not yet 
learned their business, neither were they ac- 
quainted with the creatures' migratory habits 
in the Southern Seas, nor could they distinguish 
between the profitable spermaceti, " right," and 
" humpback " whale, and the dangerous and un- 
assailable fin-back. The Britannia, for instance, 
ten days after her departure had seen, according 
to her master, 15,000 whales, the greater 
number of them off Port Jackson. Now quite 
two-thirds of this enormous number were the 
swift and dangerous fin-back, a creature that, 
while producing a certain amount of oil and 



Leviathan. 



227 



a small quantity of whalebone, is never attacked 
by boats, for it will tow a boat for thirty miles 
before it can be killed. While the shipmasters 
were agreed as to the vast number of whales, 
they considered that the bad weather and strong 
currents were obstacles too great to be over- 
come. However, they made other attempts 
along the Australian coast and then returned 
to England. 

These same vessels, with many others, now 
became regular traders to New South Wales, 
bringing out convicts under charge of a military 
guard, and returning to England sometimes via 
China, would make a cruise to the " Fishery " 
before leaving the coast. Strange indeed were 
the adventures that befell the crews of some of 
these ships as they sailed northward through the 
islet-studded waters of the north-west Pacific, and 
no history of the sea would ever be complete that 
failed to tell these old and now almost forgotten 
tales of the mutinies, attacks by pirates, cuttings 
off by South Sea Islanders, and wrecks and disas- 
ters that are interwoven with the story of the 
British merchant marine in the Pacific from 
1788 to 1850. Some of these wandering ships, 
unsuccessful in whaling, turned to sealing on 



228 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the coast of New Zealand. In the latter years 
of the last century, however, the whalemen of 
the time were gaining experience and a better 
knowledge of the habits, feeding-grounds and 
breeding resorts of both the right and sperm 
whale, as well as of the great " schools " of 
humpbacks and the less valuable flying fin- 
backs, which made their appearance with such 
undeviating regularity on the Australian coast 
at certain seasons of the year ; and slowly but 
surely the business of whaling was becoming as 
firmly established in the new colonies as it was 
on the North American seaboard. Turnbull, 
who made a voyage to New South Wales in 
1798, and a voyage round the world in 1800- 
1804, speaks of the growth of the industry 
between the dates of his visits to New South 
Wales. There were, he says, but four whalers 
on the coast of New Holland in 1798, but at 
the time of his second voyage there were four- 
teen, whose cargoes, on the average, " are not 
less than from 150 to 160 tuns of oil, the 
value of which at the present current price 
amounts to between ^180,000 and ^190,000 
annually. 

Very early the Americans began to go south, 



Leviathan, 



229 



and in the old Sydney shipping records of the 
first years of this century there are many such 
entries as these : Arrived — Favourite, March 

10, 1806, from Boston, America; having re- 
freshed, she sailed for the fishery. Comanche, 
from Juan Fernandez, with 300 barrels ; called 
to refresh, etc. etc. 

The Sydney Gazette came into existence 
in March, 1803, an d it was then and for several 
years the only newspaper in this part of the world. 
From its columns we learn that on February 1 4th 
" arrived the Greenwich whaler, Mr. Alexander 
Law, master, with 1,700 barrels of spermaceti 

011, procured mostly off the north-east coast of 
New Zealand. The whalers she left cruising off 
that coast, and which may be expected here to 
refit about the beginning of June, are the 
Venus, Albion, and Alexander." The Venus 
duly arrived with 1,400 barrels of oil, and 
reported how her master had nearly lost his 
life when acting as harpooner, by the coil 
of the line getting entangled in his leg 
and dragging him overboard, but one of 
the boat's crew cut the line just in time 
to save his captain. From this date on- 
ward for a long time almost the only news 



230 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

of importance in the convict colony is whaling 
news, and that concerning the ships arriving 
regularly from England bringing convicts or 
stores. These latter in most cases proceed to 
the whaling grounds. The ships as they come 
in bring little scraps of news of the momentous 
events happening in Europe at those times, and 
the entries in the Gazette show us that the 
whaling-men of those days had another element 
of excitement and adventure in the lives they 
led than that of encountering the whale. 

For instance, in April, 1804, arrived the 
barque Scorpion, Captain Dagg. She " sailed 
from England with a Letter of Marque the 
24th of last June ; she has mounted fourteen 
carriage guns, now in her hold, and carries 
thirty-two men." 

Most of the whalers at this time came out 
armed with Letters of Marque, and more than 
one vessel belonging to the Dutch settlements 
was made prize to English whalers. There 
was the case of the Policy, which ship, in 1804, 
was attacked by a Batavian vessel, called the 
Swift. Captain. Foster, of the Policy, turned 
the tables on the Dutchman, fought him for 
some hours, took him prisoner, and brought 



Leviathan. 231 

the Swift, which had once been a crack French 
privateer, his prize to Sydney. The story of 
the fight has been told in the old Sydney records, 
and it is not the only one of the kind which 
took place in these seas. Can it be that such 
episodes still linger in the traditions of the 
descendants of the Dutch settlers, and that the 
rankling of old wounds prompted the remark- 
able treatment of one Captain Carpenter, in the 
Costa Rica Packet — the one ewe whaling barque 
of Sydney — four or five years ago ? 

The whalers of those times had much to do 
with the discovery and exploration of the coasts 
of Australia and New Zealand, and deserters 
and men marooned from the whaleships began 
to settle on the islands of the Pacific — long 
before the missionaries were ever heard of. 

Van Dieman's Land, or Tasmania, as it is 
now called, was already beginning to assume 
an importance in connection with the fishery. 
A Gazette of December, 1806, reports that 
Captain Rhodes of the Alexander whaler had 
arrived from the Derwent and Adventure Bay. 
He had about 100 tuns of oil, and a number of 
black swans from the River Huon. Rhodes 
told the interviewer of the day that he was of 



232 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



opinion that from the middle of May to the 
beginning of January the fishery in about the 
river Derwent would be very productive, a 
single vessel might procure 300 tuns ; after that 
season the weaning of the calves takes place, 
and the fish go north. 

In a valuable work, " The Early History of 
New Zealand," published by Brett, of Auck- 
land, New Zealand, the author of that portion 
of it from earliest times to 1 840, Mr. R. A. A. 
Sherrin, gives some interesting particulars of 
the development of the whale fisheries. From 
this book we learn that, in 1808, whaling on 
the New Zealand coast was in a flourishing 
state, and that the Grand Sachem (Whipping, 
master) was about the first of a large fleet of 
American whalers which now began to frequent 
these waters. In the following year the Speke, 
Captain Hington, arrived in Sydney Cove with 
150 tuns of black, and 20 tuns of sperm oil, 
this being the first recorded instance of the 
capture of the black whale. 

The whaling grounds in the South Pacific are 
chiefly known as the " On Shore Ground," 
taking in the whole extent of ocean along the 
coast of Chili and Peru from Juan Fernandez 



Leviathan, 



2 33 



to the Gallapagos Islands ; the " Off Shore 
Ground " the space between lat. 5 deg. S,, and 
long. 90 deg. and 120 deg. W. ; and the " Middle 
Ground " — that between Australia and New 
Zealand, and there are other grounds — the east 
and west coasts of New Zealand, and across the 
South Pacific between 21 and 27 deg. of S. lat. 
The right whale fisheries are in the higher 
latitudes in both hemispheres, which are the 
feeding grounds, but as the winter approaches, 
the cows resort to the bays to bring forth their 
young, where they remain until the spring 
months, when they again meet the bulls. Polack, 
writing of sperm whales, says, " These fish are 
gregarious, and migratory in their movements, 
seldom frequenting the same latitude in an 
ensuing season, and whalemen who have pro- 
cured a cargo in one season, have often been 
minus of oil by adhering to the same place in 
the following year. No experienced South 
Seaman will calculate for a certainty where he 
will fill his ship. Those that have acted accord- 
ing to predetermination have returned to the 
port they sailed from with scarce sufficient to 
pay expenses." 

In the " twenties " whaling had considerably 



234 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



increased on the New Zealand coast, and in 
March, 1821, thirteen whalers had on board 
between them 6,960 barrels of oil. The increase 
of whaling soon led to complications with the 
Maoris, and quarrels ending in massacres begin 
to figure in the records. There is a tradition 
among the Maoris that the first Maori war 
arose owing to a dispute between two tribes, 
over some whales which were cast ashore on 
the coast. 

In July, 1827, the Australian Whale Fishery 
Company was floated, and a year or two later, 
shore whaling began in Cook's Strait, and was 
soon followed in many of the bays on the New 
Zealand coast ; while on the New South Wales 
coast, at Twofold Bay, a whaling station was a 
few years later established, and some little shore 
whaling is still carried on there to this day. 

Benjamin Boyd, a Scotchman of good family, 
came out to Sydney in 1 840 to take charge of 
some banking business, and in addition to many 
other speculations he went in largely for whaling, 
making Twofold Bay the rendezvous for his 
whaleships, and establishing a settlement known 
as Boyd Town. He was the first, or among 
the first, to employ South Sea Islanders, although, 



Leviathan. 



235 



of course, before this time whalers had often 
a Kanaka or two among their crew. Boyd had 
come out from England in a yacht called the 
Wanderer, and in this vessel, owing to financial 
disputes, he left the colony for California. On 
his way he touched at one of the Solomon 
Group, and it is supposed was murdered, as 
reliable information has never been obtained as 
to his fate. 

In March, 1830, there were a dozen vessels 
in the Bay of Islands, with 14,500 barrels of oil 
on board, which, reckoning eight barrels to the 
tun, gives a total of over 1,800 tuns, which was 
at that time valued from ^60 to £70 a tun, 
the total value being then estimated at from 
^111,000 to ^130,000; and at the same time 
a Sydney newspaper says : — " Three years ago 
New South Wales had but three vessels engaged 
in the sperm whale fishery, altogether about 450 
tons, and the New Zealand trade was unknown. 
She has now 4,000 tons of shipping engaged in 
the sperm whale trade alone — and more than 
9,000 tons of shipping have been entered out- 
wards from this port for New Zealand, and 
only since January 1st last to July 31st." 
Early in 1831 the Elizabeth came into Sydney 



2 3 6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



Harbour with 361 tuns of sperm oil, the 
produce of an eighteen months' cruise, which 
was worth ^22,000, the most valuable cargo 
of oil that had up to that time been brought 
into the port. A return of the exports from 
New South Wales for the years 1830 to 1840 
inclusive, gives an idea of what a trade this was. 
In the return the exports are classified as sperm 
whale and black whale oil, whalebone, and seal- 
skins ; without inflicting these figures on the 
reader it may be said that in 1830 the value 
of these exports was about ^60,000, and 
each year the amount steadily increased, until 
in 1840 it reached ^224,144. 

Bay whaling in New Zealand had also in- 
creased to a considerable extent, the Maoris 
taking an active part with the Europeans in 
its development ; but in New South Wales, with 
the exception of the settlement in Boyd Town, 
in later years the industry never established 
itself. Hobart Town has always been a regular 
port for whalers, and the industry survived 
longer there than at any place in the Southern 
Seas, although bay whaling had died out there 
by 1847. Norfolk Island was a regular calling 
place for the ships, and Lord Howe Island, 



Leviathan. 



237 



with its population of sixty adults to-day, 
was originally settled by seamen from whale- 
ships, many of whom are still living — one, an 
American married to a Gilbert Island woman, 
has been upon the island for fifty years. At 
Norfolk Island boat whaling is now carried 
on by the descendants of the mutineers of 
the Bounty , most of whom, it will be remem- 
bered, emigrated there from Pitcairn. 

So much for the beginning and heyday of 
whaling in the Southern Ocean ; the decline 
of the industry, and the causes of this, and the 
possibility of its revival, are worth discussing, 
but would perhaps be dull reading except to 
those of commercial mind. But the history of 
both the American and English whaling fleets 
are full of romance and daring adventure. 
Many and many a ship that sailed from the 
old New England ports and from Tasmania 
and New Zealand met with terrible experiences. 
Sometimes, as was the case of the Globe of 
Nantucket, they were cut off by the savage 
natives of the South Sea Islands, who, under 
the leadership of ruffianly beachcombers or 
escaped convicts, murdered every soul on 
board. Others there were who were actually 



238 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

attacked by infuriated whales themselves and 
sent to the bottom — like the Essex of London. 
[Only a few years ago the writer saw in Sydney 
Harbour the barquentine Handa Isle, which on 
the passage from New Zealand had been so 
attacked. She was a fine vessel of three 
hundred tons, and was sailing over a smooth 
sea with a light breeze when two large sperm 
whales were sighted. They were both travelling 
fast, and suddenly altering their course, made 
direct for the ship. Then one sounded, but 
the other continued his furious way and 
deliberately charged the barquentine. He 
struck her with terrific force just abaft the 
mainmast and below the water line. For- 
tunately the barquentine was laden with a 
cargo of timber, otherwise she would have 
foundered instantly. The blow was fatal to 
the cetacean, for in a few minutes the water 
around the ship was seen to be crimsoned 
with blood, and presently the mighty creature 
rose to the surface again, beat the ensanguined 
water feebly with his monstrous tail and then 
slowly sank.] Some of these onslaughts upon 
ships were doubtless involuntary ; as where a 
whale, attracted by the sight of a ship, had 



Leviathan. 



239 



proceeded to examine her, misjudged his dis- 
tance, and came into collision with disastrous 
effect to both. But there are many instances 
where the whale has deliberately charged a 
ship, either out of pure " devilment," or 
when maddened with the agony of the wound 
inflicted by a harpoon. 

Many years ago, a small school or " pod " of 
sperm whales was sighted off Strong's Island, in 
the Caroline Archipelago, by the ship St. George 
of New Bedford, and the Hawaiian brig 
Kamehameha IV. Both ships lowered their 
boats at once, and in a very short time Captain 
Wicks, of the Hawaiian brig, got fast to a 
large bull who was cruising by himself about 
half a mile away from the rest of the " pod." 
As is not uncommon among sperm and hump- 
backed whales, the rest of the school, almost 
the instant their companion was struck, showed 
their consciousness of what had occurred, and 
at once crowded closely together in the greatest 
alarm, lying motionless on the surface of the 
water as if listening, and sweeping their huge 
flukes slowly to and fro as a cat sweeps its tail 
when watching an expected spring from one of 
its own kind. So terrified were they with the 



240 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



knowledge that some unknown and invisible 
danger beset them, that they permitted the 
loose boats — five in number — to pull right on 
top of them. Four of the boats at once got 
fast without difficulty, leaving three or four of 
the whales still huddled together in the greatest 
fear and agitation. Just as the fifth boat got 
within striking distance of the largest of the 
remaining fish, he suddenly sounded, and was 
immediately followed by the others. Some 
minutes passed before Martin, the officer of 
the fifth boat, could tell which way they had 
gone, when the St. George signalled, " Gone to 
windward ! " and presently Martin saw them 
running side by side with the whale which had 
been struck by Captain Wicks. Martin at once 
started off to intercept them, and when within 
a few hundred yards he saw that the stricken 
whale was surrounded by four others, who 
stuck so closely beside him that Captain 
Wicks could not get up alongside his prize 
to give him the first deadly lance thrust 
without great danger. At last, however, this 
was attempted, but the whale was not badly 
hurt, and the four other fish at once sounded 
as they smelt the creature's blood. But, sud- 



Leviathan. 



241 



denly, to Martin's horror, the huge head of an 
enormous bull shot up from the ocean, directly 
beneath the captain's boat, the mighty jaws 
opened and closed and crushed her like an 
eggshell ! Fortunately Wicks and crew sprang 
overboard the moment they caught sight of the 
creature's fearful head, and none were killed, 
although two were seriously injured. Martin 
at once picked them up. Meanwhile the cause 
of the disaster darted away after his three com- 
panions and the wounded fish which was lying 
on the surface spouting blood (much to Martin's 
satisfaction, for he feared that the infuriated 
creature would destroy his boat as well as that 
of Captain Wicks). The condition of the 
wounded men justified Martin in making back 
to the ship, and he at once gave orders to that 
effect, seeing that another boat from the brig 
was hastening to kill the wounded whale. 
Hastily putting Captain Wicks and his men 
on board his ship, Martin again started out to 
meet the four loose whales which were now 
coming swiftly down towards the ships. The 
big bull which had destroyed Wick's boat was 
leading, the others following him closely. Sud- 
denly, however, he caught sight of Martin's 

l 7 



242 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



boat, swerved from his course and let his com- 
panions go on without him. Then he lay 
upon the water motionless as if awaiting the 
boat to attack and disdaining to escape. 

But just as the boat was within striking 
distance and Martin had called to the har- 
pooner, " Stand up ! " the whale sounded, only 
to reappear in a few minutes within twenty 
feet of the boat, rushing at it with open jaws 
and evidently bent upon destroying it and its 
occupants. So sudden was the onslaught that 
Martin only saved himself and his crew from 
destruction by slewing the boat's head round as 
the monster's jaws snapped together ; but as 
leviathan swept by he gave the boat an " under 
clip " with his flukes and tossed her high up in 
the air, to fall back on the water a hopelessly 
stove-in and shattered wreck. And then to the 
terror of the crew as they clung to the broken 
timbers, the whale returned, and the men had to 
separate and swim away, and watched him seize 
the boat in his jaws and literally bite it to pieces, 
tossing the fragments away from him far and 
wide. Then after a minute's pause, he turned 
over and began swimming on his back, opening 
and shutting his jaws and trying to discover his 



Leviathan, 



243 



foes. For five minutes or so he swam thus in 
widening circles, and then as if satisfied he could 
not find those he sought, he turned over on his 
belly again and made off. Almost immediately 
after Martin and his men were rescued by 
another boat. 

But the whale had not finished his work of 
destruction, and as if goaded to fury by the loss 
of his companions and the escape of his human 
foes, he suddenly appeared twenty minutes later 
close to the Hawaiian brig. He was holding 
his head high up out of the water and swimming 
at a furious speed straight toward the ship. 
The wind had almost died away, and the brig 
had scarcely more than steerage way on her, 
but the cooper, who was in charge, put the 
helm hard down, and the whale struck her a 
slanting blow, just for'ard of the forechains. 
Every one on board was thrown down by the 
force of the concussion, and the ship began to 
make water fast. Scarcely had the crew manned 
the pumps when a cry was raised, "He's coming 
back ! " 

Looking over the side, he was seen fifty feet 
below the surface, and swimming round and 
round the ship with incredible speed, and 



244 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



evidently not injured by his impact. In a few 
moments he rose to the surface about a cable 
length away, and then, for the second time, 
came at the ship, swimming well up out of the 
water, and apparently meaning to strike her 
fairly amidships on the port side. This time, 
however, he failed, for the third mate's boat, 
which had had to cut adrift from a whale to 
which it had fastened, was between him and the 
ship, and the officer in charge, as the whale 
swept by, fired a bomb into him, which killed 
him almost at once. Only for this he would 
certainly have crashed into the brig and sunk 
her. 

Another well-known instance was that of the 
ship Essex, Captain George Pollard, which was 
cruising in the South Seas in May, 1820, and 
which is related as follows : " The boats had 
been lowered in pursuit of a large school of 
sperm whales, and the ship was attending them 
to windward. The captain and second mate 
had both got fast to whales in the midst of the 
school, and the first mate had returned on board 
to equip a spare boat in lieu of his own, which 
had been stove in and rendered unserviceable. 
While the crew were thus occupied, the look- 



Leviathan. 



245 



out at the masthead reported that a large whale 
was coming rapidly down upon the ship, and 
the mate hastened his task in the hope that he 
might be in time to attack it. 

" The whale, which was a bull of enormous 
size, and probably the guardian of the school, 
in the meantime approached the ship so closely 
that, although the helm was put up to avoid the 
contact, he struck her a severe blow, which 
broke off a portion of her keel. The enraged 
animal was then observed to retire to some dis- 
tance, and again rush upon the ship with 
extreme velocity. His enormous head struck 
the starboard bow, beating in a corresponding 
portion of her planks, and the people on board 
had barely time to take to their boat before the 
ship filled and fell over on her side. She did 
not sink, however, for some hours, and the 
crew in the boats continued near the wreck 
until they had obtained a small supply of pro- 
visions, when they shaped a course for land ; 
but here, it is to be regretted, they made a fatal 
error. At the time of the accident they were 
cruising on the equator, in the longitude of 
about 1 1 8° west, with the Marquesas and 
Society Islands on their lee, and might have 



246 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



sailed in their boats to either of these groups in 
a comparatively short time. Under an erro- 
neous impression, however, that all those lands 
were inhabited by an inhospitable race of people, 
they preferred pulling to windward for the 
coast of Peru, and in the attempt were exposed 
to and suffered dreadful privations. 

Those few who survived their complicated 
disasters first made the land at Elizabeth or 
Henderson's Island, a small, uninhabited spot 
in the South Pacific, and which, until then, had 
never been visited by Europeans. After a short 
stay here part of the survivors again put to sea 
in search of inhabited land, and ultimately 
reached the coast of South America ; and an 
English whaler at Valparaiso was sent to rescue 
those left on the island, but found but two 
alive. " 

Unless the writer is mistaken the Handa Isle 
was not the first vessel bound from New Zealand 
to Sydney that was struck by a whale ; for about 
twenty-eight years ago a small barque named 
the King Oscar met with an exactly similar 
experience, and could not be kept afloat. Then, 
in the year 1835, " tne sm P Pu*? e Hall encoun- 
tered a fighting whale, which, after injuring and 



Leviathan. 



247 



driving off four boats, pursued them to the 
ship, and withstood for some time the lances 
hurled at it by the crew from the bows of the 
vessel before it could be induced to retire." 



An Island King. 



TILL within eight years ago the comman- 
ders of the various ships of war on the 
Australian station used to be familiar with the 
name of an island king who, in his small way, 
gave them considerable trouble. He was, per- 
haps, the most famed of all the chiefs of that 
vast area of scattered islands and islets in the 
North and South Pacific vaguely described as the 
" South Sea Islands," and, indeed, his courage in 
war, cunning in diplomacy, and general all round 
" cuteness," were only equalled by the famous 
old Samoan fighting chief, Mataafa, and the late 
Maafu, the once dreaded Tongan rival of King 
Cacobau of Fiji. The name of this personage 
was Tern Benoke, but he was generally known 
as Apinoka ; and his dominions were the great 

chain of coral islands which enclose the noble 

248 



An Island King. 



249 



lagoon of Apamama, the largest but one of the 
recently annexed Gilbert Islands. The popula- 
tion of these islands, comprising the atoll of 
Apamama, is now something over a thousand, 
and they do not show any signs of diminution 
— probably owing to their disinclination to 
accept the introduction of European civilisation 
and a sudden change of habits and mode of life 
generally. 

For nearly fifteen years Apinoka ruled his 
people with a rod of iron. All the revenue 
derived by his subjects from the sale of their 
produce, such as copra and other island commo- 
dities, was paid into the Royal treasury, and 
from there it found its way into the pockets of 
trading captains, who sold the aspiring King 
modern breech-loading rifles of the latest 
pattern. As time went on he began to harry 
the people of the neighbouring islands of the 
Gilberts, and soon threatened to be the one 
dominant ruler of the whole group. And then 
the missionaries — native teachers working under 
the supervision of the Boston Board of Missions 
— began to get alarmed. For missionaries in 
general Apinoka ever expressed the most 
withering contempt, and word went out that 



Wila Life in Southern Be as. 



any of his people who accepted Christianity 
would have his life cut short. And, as Apinoka 
was ever a man of his word, the people of 
Apamama obeyed. 

A hundred yards from the white beach that 
faced the inner and eastward side of the lagoon 
he built his state house, a cool, airy building of 
semi-European design and construction, and 
here he sat day after day, surrounded by his 
Danites — -grim, black-haired, and truculent — 
dictating his commands to his American secre- 
tary and another white, his interpreter and chief 
cook, Johnny Rosier. All round the spacious 
front room were boxes and cases of all sorts and 
descriptions of island trade and merchandise — 
tins of biscuits, kegs of beef, cases of gin, sar- 
dines, salmon, and piles of old-fashioned muskets 
and modern rifles. 

But although he kept a white secretary and 
interpreter, the King did not like white men. 
He had once bought a schooner, and although 
he engaged a white captain and mate, and paid 
them liberally, he treated them otherwise with 
scarcely disguised contempt. They were neces- 
sary to him— that was all ; and at any moment 
his dark, heavy face might put on a dangerous 



An Island King. 



look towards these venturesome whites. Then 
it was time to clear ; to leave the island abso- 
lutely, for he would tolerate no white man 
living on shore except those actually in his 
service and in his favour. 

Back from the house were the copra sheds 
and other buildings used for storing the King's 
produce ; and all day long his slaves toiled about 
him, cutting up the coconuts and drying them 
on mats in the fierce, hot sun. Patiently and 
in silence they worked, for they knew that those 
small, keen eyes, under that heavy, sullen brow, 
might fall upon them if they rested or talked. 
And then might the King give a sign, and one 
of the guards would come with a weighty stick, 
and the sound of savage blows upon naked 
backs be heard. 

Out upon the broad, shady verandah sat the 
Royal harem — women captured mostly from 
Apian and Tarawa and Maiana. Before them 
was spread a profusion of food — native and 
European — and as they ate and talked in low 
whispers each one sought to rival the others in 
her caressing attentions to a strong, handsome 
boy of ten years of age who ate among them. 



2 5 2 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



For this was the King's adopted son, and the 
apple of his eye. Children of his own he had 
none, and this child of his brother's was the one 
object of affection in his savage mind. 

Presently the boy — a spoiled and petted 
tyrant (he is now King) — strikes one of the 
women a rude blow on the cheek, and desires 
her to haste and bring his bath towel — he 
would bathe in one of the King's fresh water 
fish ponds. One by one the women of the 
harem rise to their feet, and with bent 
shoulders and downcast eyes pass the huge 
figure of their dreaded owner. For the boy 
must not be let to go alone for his bath. 
Perchance an old coconut might drop from a 
tree and fall near him if he wandered alone, 
and that would mean a sudden and bloody 
death for them. So one by one they file away 
through the groves of palm trees, the boy, pipe 
in mouth and towel on arm, leading the van. 

No one speaks to them as they pass through 
the village, and only the women may gaze at 
them ; the men, especially if they be young and 
stalwart, turn away their faces in silence till they 
pass. For perhaps a sly glance might pass, or an 
idle word be spoken, and then some day an evil 



An Island King. 



2 53 



tongue might whisper that Teran, the King's 
toddy-cutter, had said to a comrade that 
Nebong, the tenth wife of the King, was good 
to look upon. Then would men come to 
Teran's house in the night, and call to him 
to rise and come with them, and then as he 
walked with them along the darkened path a 
knife would gleam, or a shot ring out, and 
Teran be heard of no more. Neither would 
his name again be spoken, unless in a whisper, 
among those of his own kith and kin. 

So in this way went on the days on surf-girt 
Apamama, and Apinoka the King grew fat 
and waxed strong, and the terror of his name, 
and cold, merciless nature reached from Arorai 
in the south, to Butaritari in the north. But, 
by-and-by, there came about a rumour that 
all this steady buying of rifles and revolvers, 
and ammunition, meant ill for the people of 
the islands to the south, and many of the white 
traders, who hated the grim old despot, joined 
hands with their hereditary foes, the native 
teachers, and made common cause together for 
his downfall, which soon came about, for one 
day a British gunboat steamed into the lagoon. 



254 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



A message was sent to the King to come 
aboard, and with it a threat to make no delay, 
else matters would go ill with him. So in his 
white helmet-hat and black suit the King came 
off, rowed to the gunboat in his own whale- 
boat. With a glum, stolid look upon his face, 
and savage rage in his heart, he was helped 
up over the ship's side, and escorted to the 
cabin, and in five minutes more he knew his 
power of conquest over other islands was gone 
for ever. 

But before a word was spoken on either side, 
the King walked over to the chair that was at 
the head of the table, and, with a snort of 
mingled bodily relief and defiance to the naval 
officer, managed to squeeze his huge body into 
a sitting posture. 

ft Get up out of that chair, you confounded 
savage," said the captain, sharply. " What do 
you mean by sitting down there ? Squat on 
your hams, like the thundering savage you 
are," and he pointed to the cabin floor. " You 
have no missionary or trading captain to deal 
with now." 

Slowly he rose, fixing his eyes in won- 
dering rage upon the unmoved face of the 



An Island King, 



255 



officer. Then he squatted cross-legged on the 
floor. 

l< Every gun, every pistol, and every cart- 
ridge on the island must be brought on board 
this ship," were the startling words he next 
heard. No use was it to try to coax or 
wheedle this captain or tell him lies ; and then, 
while the King remained on board in sullen 
silence, men were sent to collect the arms. 
From that day forth the mana of Apinoka 
weakened, and then, although the bulk of 
his people stood loyally by him in his days 
of trouble and paid their tribute as of yore, 
there were many who gave voice openly to 
their hatred, and to their joy at his downfall. 

A year or so passed, and the King, sitting 
in his grand house, and looking across the 
waters towards the islands of Kuria and 
Aranuka, whose people his forefathers had slain 
in bloody massacre, grew daily more sullen 
and savage as he thought of his vanished 
glories, swept from him by the hated white 
man. A small lump that had formed on one 
of his huge legs began to pain and irritate 
him, and so the native doctors were called, 
and he commanded them to cut it open. He 



256 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



was no common man, to be dosed with 
medicines like a sick woman. " Cut," he 
said. 

They cut, and in twenty-four hours Apinoka 
was at his last gasp. Calling his head men and 
his harem around him, he commended his boy 
nephew to their care. " Let him be king in 
my place," he said, and then, not deigning to 
say farewell to his numerous wives, who wept 
around him, he took a draw at his pipe, and 
went to join the other monarchs in the spirit 
world. 



A Spurious Utopia. 



TWO years or so ago, with a wail of sorrow 
and indignation from its people, Norfolk 
Island came to the end of its existence as the 
Utopia of the balmy Southern Ocean, and, 
sentimentally speaking, was wiped off the map. 
For henceforth its future will be the care of 
the practical-minded Government of New South 
Wales and instead of the delighted visitor to 
this dreamful isle being welcomed on the shiny 
strand by youths and maidens garlanded with 
flowers and chanting a melody of welcome, as 
is generally supposed to be the island custom, 
he will be met by hotel-runners and other 
prosaic evidences of a practical civilisation. 
But the Norfolk Islanders bitterly resented 
the change forced upon them. For forty or 
more years they had been patted on the back 

1 8 2 57 



Wila Life in Southern Seas. 



by the world in general and romancists in 
particular as " an English-speaking and deeply 
religious community, brave, fair to look on, 
generous, and virtuous." Also they were said 
to be endued with a large selection of minor 
qualities, to enumerate which would take up a 
goodly-sized catalogue. Books innumerable 
have been written by enthusiastic globe-trotters 
(mostly ladies) on the beautiful Arcadian exist- 
ence that has ever been the lot of the islanders 
since the British Government took compassion 
on the cramped condition of the rapidly multi- 
plying descendants of the famous Bounty mu- 
tineers on lovely little Pitcairn Island and 
removed two hundred of them from there to 
Norfolk Island in 1856. Long before that 
time, however, the Pitcairn Islanders were held 
up — and very deservedly so — to public admira- 
tion as an ideal community, and their future career 
in their new and beautiful home was watched 
and read about with the deepest interest. In 
a very short time, however, primarily inspired 
by their intense affection for Pitcairn, some of 
the emigrants became dissatisfied and rebelled 
against the conditions of life in the new and 
more spacious paradise ; and no less than sixty 



A Spurious Utopia. 



259 



of them determined to return to their beloved 
isle, that " lonely mid-Pacific rock, hung with 
an arras of green creeping plants, passion 
flowers, and trumpet vines ; and breasting back 
the foaming surf of a mighty ocean." But 
the paternal British Government did not take 
kindly to the idea, and instead of sixty only 
seventeen people were allowed to return to 
Pitcairn. These were families of the Youngs, 
descendants of Edward Young, the comrade 
of the ill-fated Fletcher Christian. The 
seceders consisted of two men, their wives, 
ten girls, and three boys ; and to this day 
they and their descendants, augmented by an 
occasional dissatisfied McCoy, or Adams, or 
Quintal from Norfolk Island, dwell in peace 
and comfort on their old island home three 
thousand miles away from the rest of the 
Bounty stock. Sometimes a wandering trading 
vessel brings news of them, but, even in 
Australia, Pitcairn is all but forgotten. Not 
so, however, with the Norfolk Island people — 
who, by the way, are all Youngs and McCoys, 
and Quintals and Adamses, and Nobbses and 
Buffets (the first four being family names of 
their Bounty progenitors). They always were 



260 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



and are now, very much in evidence. Scarcely 
a year has gone by since 1856 but some 
traveller has written of their open-hearted 
generosity, their simple piety, and their daring 
courage as whalers. Their life was depicted 
as ideal, their loyalty to the Queen as some- 
thing touching, and they almost said cross 
words to one another when contending for 
the privilege of entertaining a visitor. The 
use of liquor was unknown, and its name 
abhorred ; a wicked word, even when some 
stalwart whaleman darted his iron at a whale 
and made a shocking bad miss, was unheard 
of, and there was no record of even the words 
" cat " or " nasty thing " being applied to each 
other by the dark-eyed island beauties, even 
under the strongest provocation. It was a 
home of unearthly bliss and strict rectitude 
of conduct. 

Time went on and the population steadily 
increased to its present numbers — about 600. 
The Melanesian Mission established a training 
school for its young native ministers, and the 
fame of the people was noised abroad, and their 
happy lot was the theme of many a pen and the 
inspiration of many an author. Then came 



A Spurious Utopia. 



261 



whispers of discontent. Strangers, called " in- 
terlopers," had settled on the island, and were 
not satisfied with the patriarchal and family 
system of government. They wrote letters to 
the outside world — and talked. And they also 
openly asserted that the morals of the Bounty 
descendants were not as good as they were sup- 
posed to be. Then came dissensions among the 
community generally, and fierce quarrels among 
the Bounty families as to certain rights and 
privileges ; and out of all this came certain 
statements which gave a shock to the ordinary 
common Christian of the outside world. No 
one believed any evil, however, of the Norfolk 
Islanders for a long time ; but at last rumour 
became so strong, and the unchristian " inter- 
lopers " made such distinct charges against them, 
that the Government of New South Wales in- 
timated to the people that an investigation into 
the administration and condition of the island 
was desirable. The Norfolk Islanders rose up 
as one man and protested in a loud voice against 
such an indignity. For forty years they had 
basked in a world-wide reputation for un- 
blemished goodness, and why should they be 
" investigated " ? And least of all would they 



262 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



submit to be investigated by the Government of 
New South Wales. They, as a community, 
were Great Britain's one ewe-lamb of a spotless 
life in the South Seas, and no one but the Queen 
herself had the right of having them " investi- 
gated." New South Wales, they admitted, had 
some sort of nominal authority over them ; 
but they were not going to tolerate anything 
like an official investigation by a colonial 
government. 

The Government of New South Wales, how- 
ever, was obdurate, and two years ago, despite 
the angry protestations of the majority of the 
islanders, a Commission was sent down from 
Sydney empowered to make a searching inquiry 
into the administration of the island laws, and 
to ascertain whether or not it would be ad- 
visable to administer Norfolk Island according 
to the laws of New South Wales. 

For a fortnight the Commission held nearly 
daily sittings, and examined a great number 
of witnesses, and then at the conclusion of its 
labours the President, Mr. Oliver, called a 
public meeting of the male inhabitants, and 
addressed them very eloquently. He pointed 
out to them that they had no power to disregard 



A Spurious Utopia. 



the laws made for them by the former Governors 
of New South Wales and substitute laws of 
their own, and that their continual maladminis- 
tration even of their own so-called laws had at 
last brought trouble upon them. He did not 
want, he said, to say hard things ; " but," he 
continued, " you have been sadly misrepresented 
by people who have visited you for a short 
time — due no doubt to your hospitality to 
them." And then he told them something 
more unpleasant still. "... The rottenness 
of their condition was very evident . . . the 
island is in a most deplorable condition . . . 
crime is rampant and unchecked . . . the morals 
of the younger people are as low as they can 
possibly be." The island, he pointed out, 
was supposed by the world generally to be a 
home of smiling plenty, and that the moral 
and social condition of its people had no 
parallel, whereas the very reverse was the case. 
Their lazy habits had been a curse to the island, 
and the condition of the land, as compared with 
what it was when the place was turned over to 
them in 1856, was deplorable indeed ; it was 
simply becoming the home of the poison bush 
and the wild tobacco plant. They imagined — 



264 



Wila Life in Southern Seas. 



and had imagined for forty years — that their 
proper policy was to exclude strangers, as they 
had done at Pitcairn Island. But that was a 
mistake. They were not capable of taking care 
of themselves, " and for their own welfare it 
was eminently desirable that colonists should be 
admitted to the island." And then the Presi- 
dent of the Commission pointed out the bene- 
ficial results that had attended the establishment 
of the Melanesian Training Mission on the 
island, and concluded his address by a kindly 
appeal to their common sense to remember that 
the glaring maladministration of justice and 
the utter disregard by the island authorities of 
instructions sent to them by the Governor of 
New South Wales had alone brought about the 
interference of the Colonial authorities. 

At the conclusion of the President's address, 
which was received in sullen and astonished 
silence, the medical officer of the island, a man 
universally respected, proposed " That it be 
represented to the Governor of New South 
Wales that it is not desirable for Norfolk Island 
to be annexed to New South Wales." To this 
the Commissioner made a brief but emphatic 
answer. He declined to allow such a resolu- 



A Spurious Utopia, 



265 



tion — in the face of the results of the Commis- 
sion's investigations — being put. 

And those who know the kind-hearted, hos- 
pitable people, and the splendid agricultural 
capabilities of their island for earning its place 
as one of the gems of the Pacific, will be 
sincerely glad of such a radical change. Its 
resources will be developed and its social condi- 
tions vastly improved under the new regime , 
which by simply pulling away the veil of senti- 
ment that has so long enwrapped the Norfolk 
Islanders in a spurious reputation of possessing 
all the virtues, will transform its inhabitants 
from being useless into good citizens of the 
Empire. 



Love and Marriage in 
Polynesia. 



THE rapid advance of civilisation and the 
spread of Christianity for the last fifty 
years among the Malayo-Polynesian races of 
the South Pacific have had, naturally enough, 
much to do with either the partial abandonment 
or the total extinction of many of their customs. 
In some cases this, and the substitution of 
European for native habits, is to be regretted, 
such as, for instance, the quick and incon- 
siderate adoption of European clothing by a 
people whose daily habits of life and constitu- 
tion rendered them peculiarly unfitted for such 
a sudden and violent change. Between 1823 
and 1830, when the natives of Rarotonga and 

other islands of the Cook Group, following their 

266 



Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 267 



chiefs' example, abandoned their heathen practices 
for Christianity, the most terrible mortality re- 
sulted from the ill-advised action of the mis- 
sionaries inducing their converts to clothe 
themselves en masse as a practical proof of their 
spiritual change, and an outward and visible 
sign of grace. Precisely the same result has 
attended the introduction of Christianity in the 
Marshall and Caroline Groups by the American 
missionaries. Nowadays, however, in this respect 
a more liberal conception of the laws of nature 
and health is possessed by missionaries in general 
all over the world than was the case in the earlier 
years of the present century. Then — and were 
it not for the pathetic side of the question, one 
might be inclined to laugh at such inconceivable 
folly and ignorance being displayed by educated 
men — it was thought essential for a convert, 
who, perhaps, had for fifty years worn nothing 
more than a waist-girdle of pandanus leaf or of 
thin calico, to be garmented in a suit of heavy 
black cloth or woollen material, and adopt as 
well the habits and manners of civilised life. 
That many thousands of people died from 
pulmonary complaints engendered by this 
sudden change, the natives themselves assert ; 



268 Wild Life in Southern Seas, 

and, indeed, only a few years ago the people of 
one of the North- Western Pacific Islands almost 
entirely succumbed to pulmonary disease 
caused by their wearing heavy clothing during 
the rainy season. Previously, when they wore 
nothing more than a simple waist cloth or girdle 
of grass, such diseases were absolutely unknown, 
but their desire to resemble white men as much 
as possible, and the earnest supplications of the 
resident Hawaiian teacher who implored them 
to dress as he did, in cloth, proved fatal to 
these simple-minded people. 

Among other customs that have undergone a 
rapid change, or have been altogether discon- 
tinued, is that of marriage according to the old 
rites and ceremonies, with its many interesting 
and often pleasing details. In all those islands 
— except Samoa, perhaps — that have been the 
scene of missionary labours, the ceremony of 
marriage is now performed by either a white 
missionary or native teacher, and is a very 
prosaic affair, divested as it is of all the old 
attendant feastings and merrymakings. But 
among the Micronesian race inhabiting many 
of the scattered islands of the Western Caroline 
Group, the old native customs have as yet scarcely 



Love and Marriage in Polynesia, 269 



undergone any great change, and the ceremonies 
attending the marriage of any chief of note are 
as prolonged and imposing as are the dances 
and other festivities, which last for some weeks. 

Ellis, who made a careful study of the manners 
and customs of the Malayo-Polynesians inhabit- 
ing the Society, Austral, and Hawaiian Islands, 
gives some very interesting particulars of the 
marriage customs during the early days of 
missionary enterprise in the South Seas. At 
the present day these are unknown, and, indeed, 
the younger generation of natives are almost as 
ignorant of the customs and practices of their 
forefathers as a Yorkshire labourer is of those of 
the people of Tierra del Fuego. 

In Samoa, although the commoner people are 
married in the European fashion in a church, 
the higher chiefs still cling with pardonable 
tenacity to many of the old practices observed 
in former times ; and, indeed, so strong a hold 
has the observance of such ceremonies upon the 
Samoan mind, that while the poorer classes are 
content to be married according to the rites of 
the Christian religion, they eagerly enter into all 
the preparations for the celebration of a chief's 
marriage with the ancient rites, which generally 



270 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



precede the subsequent ceremony performed by a 
white missionary or native teacher. 

In Tahiti, the celebration of marriage, says 
Ellis, took place at an early age, " with females 
at twelve or thirteen, and with males at two or 
three years older (and, indeed, this is still the 
practice). Betrothment was the frequent method 
(as it is in Fiji at the present time) by which 
marriage contracts were made among the chiefs 
or higher ranks in society. The parties them- 
selves were not often sufficiently advanced in 
years to form any judgment of their own, yet, 
on arriving at maturity, they rarely objected to 
the engagements their friends had made." 
Sometimes, however, previous attachments had 
been formed, which resulted in the same tragedies 
that occur from the same cause in civilised life. I 
remember hearing of one such instance which oc- 
curred at Niue, the " Savage Island" of Captain 
Cook, only a few years ago. A young native girl 
had become much attached to a man who, with a 
number of other islanders, had gone away under 
a two years' engagement to work the guano 
deposits on Howland Island, in the Equatorial 
Pacific. When they returned she learned that 
her lover was dead, and from that day her once 



Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 27 1 



gay and merry demeanour left her. She fell into 
a deep melancholy, and confided to two of her 
girl friends that her parents, now that her lover 
was dead, insisted upon her marrying another 
suitor, whom she regarded with indifference, if 
not dislike. One of her confidants, a girl of 
about eighteen, had been for many years 
afflicted with a painful disease in the bones of 
her left foot, and suggested to her friend that 
they should both end their sorrows by suicide. 
The third girl, who was the youngest of all, ear- 
nestly sought to dissuade them from such a deed, 
but, finding her pleadings were unavailing, said 
she would not remain alive to lament their loss. 
They seemed to have made their preparations 
for death with the utmost calmness and fortitude, 
and, dressing themselves in their best, they 
leaped over the cliffs, and ended their lives 
together. 1 

In Tahiti and the other Society Islands the 
period of courtship, in Ellis's time, " was seldom 
protracted among any class of the people ; yet 
all the incident and romantic adventure that 

1 Publisher's Note. — This incident is related in detail 
in " Pacific Tales," under the title of " For We were 
Friends Always," by the same author. 



272 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



was to be expected in a community in which a 
high degree of sentimentality prevailed, occa- 
sionally came to pass, and the unsuccessful suitor 
was sometimes even led to the commission of 
suicide, under the influence of revenge and despair. 
Unaccustomed to disguise either their motives or 
their wishes, they generally spoke and acted with- 
out hesitation ; hence, whatever barriers might 
oppose the union of the parties, whether it was 
the reluctance of either of the individuals them- 
selves, or of their respective families, the means 
used for their removal were adopted with much 
less ceremony than is usually observed in 
civilised society." As an instance of this, he 
relates the following authentic story : A young 
chief of Murea (or Eimeo), an island a few 
miles from Tahiti, became attached to the niece 
of one of the principal raatiris, or landowners, 
on the island of Huahine. He was one of the 
body-guard of Taaroarii, the king's son, and 
although only twenty years of age, was already 
distinguished for his courage in warfare and his 
gigantic stature and perfect proportions, while 
his pleasing countenance and manners and 
engaging disposition generally, rendered him a 
favourite with both whites and natives. The 



Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 273 

girl's family admitted his visits and favoured 
his designs, but the object of his choice declined 
every proposal he made. No means to gain 
her consent were left untried, but all proved 
unavailing. He discontinued his ordinary 
avocations, left the establishment of the young 
prince who had selected him for his friend more 
than his servant, and repaired to the habitation 
of the girl he was so anxious to obtain. Here 
he appeared subject to the deepest melancholy, 
and, leaving the other members of the family to 
follow their regular pursuits, from morning to 
night, day after day, he attended his mistress, 
performing humiliating offices with apparent 
satisfaction, and constantly following in her 
train whenever she appeared abroad. His 
friends interested themselves in his behalf, 
and the disappointment of which he was 
subject became for a time the topic of general 
conversation in the settlement among natives 
and whites alike. At length the young lady 
was induced to accept his offer. They were 
publicly married, and there being nothing of 
the New Woman about this Polynesian beauty, 
lived very happily together. Their married 
life, however, was but of short duration, for 

19 



274 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



his wife, for whom he appeared to cherish 
the most ardent affection, died a few months 
afterwards. 

Later on an instance of another kind oc- 
curred. A party of five or six persons arrived 
in a canoe from Tahiti on a visit to some 
friends in Huahine, one of the Leeward 
Islands. Their original destination was Bora- 
bora, but they remained several weeks at Hua- 
hine, the guests of a chieftainess named Terai- 
mano. During their stay, a young woman of 
great beauty, " one of the belles of the island, 
and who belonged to the household of their 
hostess, became exceedingly fond of the society 
of one of the young men, and it was soon inti- 
mated to him by some of her girl friends that 
she wished to become his companion for life. 
The intimation, however, was disregarded by 
the young man, who expressed his intention of 
prosecuting his voyage — like the lover who 
kisses and rides away. The girl made no 
secret of her distress, and her beauty of face 
and figure suffered such a remarkable change in 
so short a time that her friends became deeply 
concerned ; but she yet showed her preference 
for the object of her affection by scarcely 



Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 275 



leaving his side. But finding that the young 
fellow, who was barely past eighteen years of 
age, was unmoved by her attentions, she not 
only became exceedingly unhappy, but declared 
that if she continued to receive the same in- 
difference and neglect, she would either strangle 
or drown herself. Like the Niuean girl before- 
mentioned, she had friends who sought to dis- 
suade her from her .purpose ; but as she declared 
her determination was unaltered, they used their 
endeavours with the stranger, who afterwards 
returned the attentions he had received, and the 
couple were married at Huahine. His com- 
panions pursued their voyage, and afterwards 
returned to Tahiti, while the newly-married 
couple continued to reside with the chieftainess 
Teraimano. Their happiness, hov/ever, was of 
short duration ; not that death dissolved their 
union, but that attachment which had been so 
ardent in the bosom of the young woman before 
marriage was superseded by a dislike equally as 
powerful, and she subsequently treated her 
youthful husband with insult and contempt, 
and finally left him." 

In 1882, when I resided on Maduro, one of 
the Marshall Islands, a young man, Jelik, a 



276 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



brother of the chief of the district, conceived an 
ardent affection for a young woman who was 
employed as a servant by a German trader 
named Wolff. She was of foreign blood, being 
a native of Arrecifos, or Providence Island 
(North- West Pacific), from whence she had been 
brought by the trader during her childhood. 
Possessed of ample means, the young man 
sought to show his affection in the most ex- 
travagant manner by making the girl presents 
of all sorts of articles, both European and 
native. Among his gifts to her was a hand- 
worked sewing machine — -just then coming into 
use among the natives of the Marshall Group — - 
and a keg of salt meat. Both of these were 
bought from a white trader at a high price — 
about five times their English value — and were 
subsequently bought back by him (the trader) 
from the girl for a few dollars. Her object in 
selling them was, she said, to make her lover a 
present. The money she at once expended in the 
purchase of tobacco and a small clasp-knife ; and 
her lover, instead of being, as would be imagined, 
angry at her conduct, expressed the greatest 
delight at receiving such a proof of her regard. 
A few months later it was my happy privilege 



Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 277 



to be present at the marriage and assist Jelik in 
receiving two or three other white men who 
were invited to be present. At the conclusion 
of the marriage ceremony — which was per- 
formed according to ancient custom, for the 
missionaries had not then succeeded in making 
any converts on Maduro — the bridegroom 
announced his intention of putting away his 
two other wives, whom he had hitherto treated 
with respect and affection. This, however, the 
young lady from Providence Island strenuously 
besought him not to do ; and although barely 
sixteen years of age, she made an eloquent 
appeal to her husband before the assembled 
guests, and declared that she would at once 
return to the protection of her former master's 
wife rather than consent to such an injustice. 
Her extreme youth, she said, would not allow 
her to supersede in such a sudden and cruel 
manner two women who had never done her an 
injury ; she would rather dwell in accord with 
them under their joint husband's roof and be 
taught by them in her wifely duties than subject 
them to an outrage and do violence to her own 
feelings. Her earnest appeal to her husband 
softened him, and he consented to retain his two 



278 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



former wives, explaining to his newly-wedded 
one and the white traders, that while he had no 
cause of complaint against the original sharers 
of his married [life, they were women of no 
rank or position, and would not themselves feel 
aggrieved had he persisted in his intention. 
His conduct was in no degree singular in this 
respect, ^nd the three wives got on very happily 
together afterwards. Like the people of the 
South Pacific Islands, however, the woman to 
whom a Micronesian chief or person of distinc- 
tion is first united in marriage is generally con- 
sidered as the head of the establishment, and 
although he may subsequently marry one or 
two more wives of higher rank than the first, 
she would hold a superior position to the new- 
comers. 



Nine : the " Savage Island" of 
tai?i Cook. 

THREE hundred miles eastward from the 
Friendly Islands, and rising abruptly from 
the blue waters of the Pacific, is the lonely and 
verdure-clad Niue, the "Savage Island" of 
Captain Cook, and the abode of one of the 
most interesting and conservative peoples in 
Polynesia. 

If you make the island anywhere on its 
northerly or easterly coast, you will not like 
its appearance. Before you lies what seems to 
be a rounded mass of floating green, the base 
hidden from view by a misty haze that may 
be either fog or smoke. But as the ship gets 
well into the land, and point after point opens 

out, you see that the cloudy mist is neither 

279 



280 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



smoke nor fog, but the spray of the wild surf 
beating unceasingly against the long, mono- 
tonous line of grim and savage-looking cliffs 
that rear their dreaded fronts from Makefu to 
Fatiau. All day long, be the sea as smooth 
as glass oceanwards, or be the trade wind gone 
to sleep, the narrow ledge of black and jagged 
coral reef that here and there juts out at the 
foot of the forbidding wall of grey is smothered 
in the boil and tumble of the restless breakers ; 
and where there is no shelving reef to first 
arrest and break their fury, the huge sweeping 
seas race madly inward, and with the roar of 
heavy artillery fling themselves in quick and 
endless succession against the face of the 
perpendicular cliffs, to pour back in sweeping 
clouds of snowy foam. Sometimes, if the 
south-east trade is blowing lustily, the roar 
and crash of the surf seems to shake and vibrate 
the coral wall to its foundations, and the thick 
and matted scrub that lines the summits of 
the cliffs to their very verge is drenched and 
flattened by the sheeted spray, and the swaying 
fronds of the coconut-palms growing further 
back from the shore are wetted and soaked by 
the lighter spume. 



Niue. 



281 



There is no barrier reef to Savage Island, 
and consequently no harbours. Anchorages 
there are — one at Avatele and one at Alofi, 
the two largest towns — but even these are only 
available during good weather, and when the 
trades are steady. Many a good ship has 
met her fate on the cruel shore of Niue, and 
among them was the second John Williams^ 
missionary ship of the London Missionary 
Society ; she was wrecked there in 1867. And 
long, long before the first wandering white man 
ever landed on the island, unknown ships had 
run ashore there, and never a soul was left to 
tell the tale ; for in those days even had the 
sea spared the lives of the castaways, the spears 
and clubs of the ferocious natives would have 
made quick work of them. And even nowa- 
days, when every native on the island is 
a decided Christian, and goes to church twice 
a day on week-days and four times on the 
Sabbath, they candidly admit that they do not 
like white people, and only tolerate their 
presence for benefits derivable from intercourse 
with them. 

Though the island is but forty miles in 
circumference, there are over five thousand 



282 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



natives living in the eleven villages that are 
situated at pretty wide intervals on Niue, and 
although, since the introduction and adoption 
of European clothing, pulmonary and other 
dreaded diseases have become prevalent, the 
population shows no signs of decreasing ; in 
fact, it has shown a slight increase since 1872. 
Before describing the people, however, it should 
be mentioned that Niue is one of the few of those 
peculiarly-formed islands known as " upheaved 
coral," and although the interior is either a 
series of impenetrable guava scrub interspersed 
with belts of heavy timber, coconut groves, 
and masses of jagged coral rock covered with 
a matted growth of vine and creeper, the 
decomposed coral soil is of wonderful fertility, 
and, given one condition — an industrious people 
— this solitary and little-known island would 
be one of the richest in all the South Pacific. 

Five years ago I first saw Niue and afterwards 
spent six months there. A very stormy passage 
from Tonga had thoroughly sickened me of 
the hideously dirty and uncomfortable trading 
steamer in which the voyage was made, and it 
was delightful to hear the rattle of the cables 
through the hawse-pipe that told us we had 



NiuL 



283 



reached our destination — the village of Avatele, 
which was to be my home. We were anchored 
so close to the shore that I could hear from 
my cabin the shouts and cries of the natives 
as they gathered together on the rocks awaiting 
the boats to land, and I hurried to dress myself 
and my little daughter so as to get ashore 
in the first boat. 

The scene from the deck of the ship was 
a pretty one. Between rocky headlands there 
lay a tiny little beach — the only one on Niue — 
from which a rough path led to the village, 
an irregular cluster of brown thatched houses 
standing among lofty coconut-palms ; and 
further back on a level greensward, white 
buildings of coral lime contrasted prettily with 
the wealth of the dark green foliage of orange 
and breadfruit trees that grew around them. 
Beyond, nothing was to be seen but an endless 
array of the greyish-red trunks of the graceful 
coco-palms that encompassed the village on all 
sides but the sea front. 

By the time we had taken our seats in the 
boat, the whole of the village had gathered 
together on the rocks — men, women, and 
children. I had only just time to notice that 



284 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



all the women were dressed in long gowns of 
the brightest colours — red, green, blue, scarlet, 
and indeed of every other hue imaginable ; 
and that their long, coarse black hair hung 
loosely down upon their backs like horses' 
tails, when the boat touched the landing place, 
and the noise, which had been bad enough 
before, now became simply indescribable ; and 
then, before I could recover my dazed senses, we 
were fairly rushed by hundreds of women and 
girls, who fought and struggled with each other 
for the privilege of shaking hands with the 
" new " papalagi (white man) and his child, 
who had come to live among them. 

Up the rocky path we were borne towards 
the house of one of the resident white traders, 
whose guests we were to be till my own house 
was put in readiness. Presently we reached his 
gate, and here there was a mad rush to get 
inside. My little daughter, who was close 
behind me, carried by a pleasant-faced woman 
named Hakala, began to get terrified at the 
deafening noise and excitement. A short, 
muscular-looking young native with a light- 
brown skin and dandified black moustache, 
pushed through the women, knocked them 



Niue. 



285 



aside with scant ceremony, and made room for 
me to get inside the fence and on to the 
verandah of the house. Then a pretty, pale- 
faced, little white lady — the trader's wife — 
came out and welcomed me warmly to Niue. 

Outside the fence the swarm of gaily-clad 
women and children shrieked and yelled at 
" Nikolasi Tane " and " Nikolasi Fafine " 
(literally " Nicholas and his wife "), not to 
take the new white man and his child inside 
just yet ; they wanted to kitia (look at) them a 
little longer. And then they tried to force their 
way in, despite the angry verbal remonstrances 
of " Nikolasi Fafine,'' and the good-natured 
but hearty punches and kicks administered 
them by Soseni, the native teacher's muscular 
son. At last our hostess carried us off in 
triumph to her comfortable sitting-room (her 
husband was busy landing some trade goods) 
where I met the rest of her family, the younger 
members of which, although in manners and 
appearance exactly like other English chil- 
dren, only spoke and were spoken to in the 
native language. This, my hostess explained 
to me, was an inevitable consequence of long 
residence in the islands, and although the 



286 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



children were actually educated in English, it 
was impossible to get them to talk in anything 
but Niuean — even to their parents — and 
then, naturally enough, the parents themselves 
answered them in the same tongue. 

In a few weeks or so I was fairly settled down 
to the routine of life in Savage Island, and 
began to take an interest in the people. 
Candidly, they are not nice people — not by 
any means. In appearance the Niueans are a 
strongly-built, muscular race, darker in colour 
than the Samoans, and without many of the 
good qualities that distinguish the latter race. 
In Samoa you cannot walk about anywhere in 
the villages without the natives calling out and 
asking you to come inside out of the heat of 
the sun {Sau i fale ma le la /) and drink a coco- 
nut. In Niue you may ride or walk all round 
the island on a blisteringly hot day and meet, 
perhaps, fifty natives of either sex carrying 
bundles of drinking coconuts, but they will 
walk stolidly past, unless you happen to have 
some tobacco to give them. Then you will 
get a drink and, if the piece of tobacco you 
tender is not big enough, the man or woman 
vou give it to will not hesitate to teM you that 



Nine. 



287 



you are lamakai — shockingly mean. In Samoa, 
at night time, fires are lit and mirth and 
merriment prevail, and the sound of singing 
and dancing may be heard in every village after 
evening service. In Niue there is none of this ; 
there is no dancing — that is strictly forbidden, 
save a decorous, semi-religious performance 
that takes place when a new church is opened, 
or on the occasion of some religious function ; 
and as for singing, nothing but hymns are 
tolerated, hymns shouted at the very greatest 
tension of naturally harsh and guttural voices 
in a tongue that is a curious combination of 
Maori and Hawaiian. As soon as darkness 
falls upon the islands the natives retire to their 
dwellings. No one, unless it is some enterpris- 
ing fowl or pig stealer, or a stealthy lover 
hurrying to his trysting-place, will brave the 
darkness. Now and then you may hear the 
crunching of the broken coral pebbles in the 
roadway, and the tread of footsteps of the leo 
leo, or policemen on their beat to arrest any 
one who is abroad without good reason. 

At daylight the people are up and about. 
Those who own plantations of yams, taro, 



288 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



sugarcane, or bananas, set out to work before 
the heat of the sun gets too great. But they 
must be back in time for morning service. 
Others — and these are in a majority — will loll 
outside the trader's store door waiting for him 
to open, and here they will lie and loaf about 
half the day, buying nothing themselves, but 
watching the people from other villages bring in 
their baskets of copra, sea-island cotton, fungus, 
bundles of arrowroot, vegetables, fruit, and 
other native produce to sell to the white man. 

One monotonous day succeeds another, only 
to be broken by the cry of " Sail, Ho ! " Then 
the village wakes up, and for the next two or 
three days the wildest activity prevails. After 
the ship has gone the white traders and their 
wives visit each other in succession, and hear 
or tell the latest news from Sydney or Auck- 
land, for month after month has passed and no 
ship has come. Perhaps there is afono (the tapu 
of other islands) on the coconut trees, and no 
copra can be made for six months ; and the 
cotton is not yet ripe for picking. Then the 
trader knows what ennui means. He has read 
all the books on the station, and life becomes a 
weariness. There are no white, sandy beaches on 



Niue. 



289 



Niue, laved by placid lagoons, where one can 
walk for miles, as in other islands ; no pigeons 
to shoot in the dense, scrubby interior, and 
only one thing that can be done, and that is 
saddle his horse and ride round the island. 
For there are horses on Niue, and fairly good 
ones too, although they are terribly tender- 
footed, owing to the rough nature of the 
country. There is but one road on the island, 
which, starting at Avatele, winds its sinuous 
and erratic course among the groves of coco- 
nuts that fringe the rocky coast right round 
the island. 

I shall always remember my first ride there. 
The station horse was an old New Zealand 
hurdle racer, which had been taken over by 
an Island trading firm for a bad debt owing 
them by some unfortunate. He was sent to 
Niue, and because of his alleged habit of 
bolting had acquired an evil reputation, and I 
was earnestly cautioned not to ride him. He 
could never be trusted, I was told, and many 
terrible calamities would happen if I tried it. 
I would be killed before I had gone a mile. I 
was not. He walked quietly out of the station 
gate, and undisturbed by the cries of the natives, 

20 



2go 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the yelping of the teacher's dogs, and the 
grunting and squealing of the scores of pigs 
that lay basking in the sunshine of the narrow 
road, he trotted along over the crunching 
pebbles till the " street " of Avatele was left 
behind. Then, once his tender feet felt the 
soft red soil beyond, he cantered gaily along 
till the first obstruction was reached, a high 
fence of coconut logs, erected across the road 
to prevent the village pigs wandering into the 
bush. The sound of the horse's feet brought 
a rush of people to the narrow gate. They 
fought and swore violently at each other as to 
who should open the gate for the white man. 
How good of them. Alas ! no. They charge 
for politeness in Niue. A stick of vile, strong- 
smelling tobacco is the fee for opening any 
gate. If you have not got it with you, you 
will have to give them a written I O U for it. 
Most likely the bearer of the order will give 
it to a friend who has a bruised finger or a 
cut foot, who will swear you out that he was 
the man who opened the gate, and that in so 
doing a log fell on his hand, or the horse trod 
on his foot and cut it, and demand another 
stick of tobacco for compensation. 



Niue. 



A mile or so from Avatele the road turns 
off at the village of Tamakautoga, and ascends 
the plateau, and here for a mile or two is a 
lovely bit of verdant tropical beauty — an avenue 
of shady palms, interspersed with orange and lime 
trees. Then comes a flat, sandy plain covered 
with patches of guava scrub and native planta- 
tions of sugarcane. Sometimes, where the road 
passes through a guava thicket, the ripe guavas 
fall about the horse as he pushes the branches 
aside with a toss of his head. Six miles from 
Avatele and you catch a glimpse of blue sea 
now and then through the dense foliage, and 
come to the edge of the plateau before the 
road descends to Alofi ; and then two hundred 
feet below you can see the open coast and the 
steep coral cliffs again, and hear the roar and 
thunder of the ever-beating surf. 

No one wants to go further than Alofi the first 
day, for at Alofi is the home of a man who, with 
his amiable and hospitable wife, has, during his 
five-and-twenty long years of unceasing toil 
on Savage Island, endeared himself not only 
to every trader on the island but to every 
wandering white man, be he captain or fo'c'sle 
hand, who has ever stood under his roof-tree. 



292 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



And there is one thing to be said of the Niue 
native ; and that is, that, with all his faults, he 
would give his life for the white missionary 
who is not only his teacher and adviser in things 
spiritual, but his doctor, his protector, and his 
friend. 

" White men lead such a lazy existence in 
South Seas, do they not ? " is a question often 
asked, and usually answered in the affirmative. 
But there are exceptions to every rule, and the 
white trader, and his white or native wife on 
Savage Island, do not lead the dreamy, careless, 
and lazily happy sort of life which Herman 
Melville has written in those charming books — 
"Typee" and "Omoo." Not that he is kept 
continuously busy all the year round, for it 
sometimes happens that the native rulers place 
a fono upon the coconut trees, and during the 
period that the fono (the tapu of other islands) 
is in force, which may be from one to six 
months, the business of copra-making ceases, 
and although there is much other island produce 
to be bought, such as arrowroot, fungus, and 
cotton, these form but a comparatively minor 
adjunct to the mainstay of the island trade, 



Niue. 



293 



which is copra. At the time of my arrival 
there were five traders on the island, who, 
while absolutely yearning for each other's society 
during the slack season, were mortal enemies, 
from a business point of view, during the copra 
season. Business competition was very keen, 
and the natives took advantage of it to the 
fullest extent by demanding such a high price 
for their copra and cotton that the white men 
had to combine and agree as to a maximum 
price. After a hard battle with the natives, 
the latter yielded and peace was restored. 

At our village, Avatele, there were two 
traders. There were also two at Alofi, and one 
(the doyen of the vocation on Niue) at a distant 
village called Mutulau. As there are eight 
other towns, besides those mentioned, which 
have no resident traders, the people of these 
eight places have to carry their produce in some 
cases nine or ten miles. Thus, to Avatele 
would be brought copra, arrowroot, fungus, 
and cotton from the large towns of Hakupu 
and Liku, distant six and eleven miles, as well 
as from the nearer small towns of Fatiau and 
Tamakautoga, while Alofi and Mutulau were 
the markets for Uhomotu, Tamalagau, Tamaha- 



294 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

tokula, and Makefu. Sometimes parties of two 
hundred or three hundred natives would arrive 
at Avatele from, say, Hakupu, each man and 
woman carrying two baskets of copra slung on 
a pole and weighing, say, 80 lb. or 100 lb. They 
would generally start on their journey long 
before daylight and reach Avatele before the 
sun's rays grew too powerful. Likely enough, 
they would find that another large party of 
people had come in from Tamakautoga on a 
similar mission, and had taken possession of all 
the available ground surrounding the traders' 
stores. 

Now, the rankest jealousy between the various 
towns obtains on Niue, and, consequently, in a 
few minutes, wrangling and fighting would 
begin, the women taking an active part in the 
proceedings. For half an hour or so the noise 
would be deafening ; then the bell for morning 
service rang and quiet reigned till its close. 
By this time the white men had finished break- 
fast and were ready to open their stores and 
commence the day's trading. And a day's 
trading on Savage Island during the copra 
season is enough to try the temper of a saint. 
Let me try and describe it. 



Niue. 



295 



The two rival trading stations at. Avatele 
almost adjoin each other. Each trader has 
his own particular adherents, and long before 
he is ready to throw open his store these 
have brought their baskets of copra and 
dumped them down against his door. Natur- 
ally enough the Avatele natives try to be first 
in the field, and block the people from outside 
villages from getting too near the door for the 
first rush. Perhaps the trader has just opened 
a case of something lovely in the way of prints 
— a green and yellow check upon a brilliant 
scarlet ground — and the Avatele women are 
determined that none of that print shall go to 
hated Hakupu. Each man is accompanied by 
his wife, and each wife is accompanied by as 
many of her female relatives as she can muster ; 
also her children. If she has no children there 
are always plenty of volunteers, and every one 
— men, women, and children — mean to handle 
that piece of print, and prevent any outsider 
buying it. By-and-by the whole of the vacant 
ground, stretching from the traders' stores away 
up to the white-walled native church, is covered 
with hundreds upon hundreds of excited people, 
every one of whom has from two to a dozen 



296 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



baskets of copra to sell, and is possessed of a 
set resolve to get it weighed and sold before 
any one else. 

As the sun gets higher, the impatience of the 
waiting, wrangling crowd increases. And still 
more people come in by various paths leading 
from the interior of the island. All these, too, 
have heavy loads of the rank, oily-smelling 
copra, packed in large baskets made of plaited 
coconut leaves. Generally the load is slung to 
a pole, the ends of which rest upon the naked 
shoulders of the bearer. As they stagger down 
the rocky path that leads from Fatiau and 
Hakupu, they are greeted either with cries of 
welcome or jeers from those who have arrived 
before them. With a cry of relief their burden 
is dropped, and then from the baskets and the 
bearers' backs and shoulders arises a black swarm 
of flies. Flies are one of the two curses of 
Niue. The other is the curse of grass seed. 
The latter only troubles the white people's 
garmented legs ; the former make no distinc- 
tion between white man or native. Leaving the 
darkened and fly-protecting shade of your house 
and going out into the dazzling sunshine you be- 
come black with flies in five minutes. They crawl 



Niue. 



297 



into your ears and settle in your eyes. Brush 
them off and kill them, and for every hundred 
you slay a thousand cheerfully buzz into their 
place. You meet a native. He looks like a 
perambulating figure composed of flies. As he 
passes he gives himself a vigorous brush with 
a branch he carries. You do the same. Two 
black clouds arise and assimilate and then divide 
forces. If the native is a bigger man than you, 
he gets most. 

At last the trader has finished his breakfast 
and makes for the door of his fale koloa (store), 
and a roar of approval comes from the natives, 
and then ensues a wild stampede. First of all, 
though, he looks out through a peep-hole and 
calls out fui tau lago ("Brush off your flies"). 
The women set to work and strike out vigorously 
right and left. The men will most likely call 
out to the trader to come and brush them away 
himself (I think I have mentioned before that 
your Savage Islander is not a Chesterfield). 
The door opened, the trader steps into the 
breach. A huge platform scale is wheeled out 
in front of the counter, beside which he takes 
his stand, note-book in hand. If he is a single 



2 9 8 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



man he will weigh, say, some 10,000 lb. or 
20,000 lb. of copra, and then leave off weighing 
and go behind his counter and pay for it before 
weighing any more. If he is married, his wife 
pays for each lot as it is weighed. Before he 
proceeds to weigh the first lot, however, he may 
call out — " Do any of you people here think I 
want to cheat with this fua (scale) ? " 

Immediately some one will answer, " Yes." 

" Mitaki (good). Then let some of you come 
up and try the scale." He does not get angry 
— not unless he is new to the cheerful candour 
of the Niue people. 

A basket of copra is brought up and placed 
on the scale. The trader weighs it, and appar- 
ently takes no notice of some half a dozen natives 
who stand by with pencils and note-books. They 
are missionary pupils — i.e., sucking ecclesiastics. 
He knows just as well as they do that that basket 
of copra has been weighed half a dozen times by 
as many native teachers, and its weight carefully 
noted. Every teacher has a steelyard, and every 
bag of cotton, or fungus, or basket of copra, that 
goes out of any village is weighed on that steel- 
yard before it is sold to a white man. Born 
cheats themselves, they trust no one. 



Nine. 



299 



Silence for a few seconds, and then the trader 
calls out, " Siau ma tolu pouna (103 lb.)." 

A sigh of relief comes from the natives, and 
the six young ecclesiastical gentlemen with 
pencils murmur, " E tonu " (correct). 

" Three pounds off for the basket," says the 
trader, as he hands the seller an I.O.U. for the 
amount due to him. A howl of rage, and then 
a chorus of such expressions as " Robber, tagata 
kolea (bad man), pikopiko (liar). 'Tis a shame 
to say it weighs 3 lb. It weighs but 1 lb." 

"All right," says the trader placidly, "capsize 
it, and let us weigh the basket." The basket is 
a thick, heavy one of green coconut leaves, made 
purposely heavy, and weighs just 6 Jb. "Here, 
give me back that bit of paper, and the trader 
scratches out the figures 100 and writes 97 
instead. 

Probably the seller will swear, if not at the 
trader, at himself. Then he gives place to some 
one else. At the end of three or four hours the 
white man calls out that he is tired and hungry, 
wants to eat something, and his dinner awaits 
him. If the natives are in a good temper, they 
grumble good-naturedly, and tell him not to 
bother about his dinner, they will send some 



3°° 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



one to eat it for him. If they are cross, they 
will tell him that gluttony is the curse of all 
white men, and suggest that if he cannot find 
time to attend to his business he had better 
give up trading altogether. 

So the day goes on, till darkness brings an 
end to the noise and work, and the wearied 
white man, with hands and face smothered in 
greasy copra dust, goes back to his dwelling- 
room for a prefunctory wash and to eat a 
hurried meal. He has given out, say, five 
hundred I.O.U.'s, ranging in value from 50c. 
to 20 dol. each, and many of the holders of these 
are people from distant villages who must be 
paid that night, as they want to get back. 
So, lighting some lamps, he opens the store 
again. Already there is a swarm of people 
waiting. The first I.O.U. is handed in by a 
woman. He looks at it — 400 lb. at 2c. per lb. 
—8 dol. 

" What do you want for this ? " he asks. 

" Six fathoms of ie vala vala (muslin)." 

" Yes ; go on," and he ticks off 1 dol. 50c. 

" Salu piko (a poll comb)." 

" Yes," and he marks down 25c. 

" Fagu Maskala (a bottle of musk)." 



Niue. 



301 



£< Right, a dollar. Come, hurry up, don't go 
to sleep ; what else ? " 

" Is a, saucy white man. How much is left? " 

" Five dollars and a quarter." 

" Have you any fulu fulu kula (scarlet ostrich 
feathers for head adornment) ? " 

" Yes ; here you are, a dollar each. How 
many ? " 

" Two." 

" Three dollars and a quarter left. Come,^ 
moe koe (are you going to sleep) ? " 

The woman laughs good-naturedly as she 
caresses the curling scarlet feathers admiringly. 
" Can I have some money ? I want a dollar for 
tau poa ne me (the missionary offering)." 

"Yes. Here you are. That leaves one dollar 
and a quarter. What else ? " 

' 4 Nothing now ; fakamau (place it to my 
credit)." 

" Right. What is your name and place? " 

" Talamaheke, from Fatiau." 

The trader enters her name in a book, tears 
up the original I.O.U. for 8 dol., and gives her 
1 dol. for the amount remaining to her credit. 
And so on till he is too tired to do any more, 
and shuts up his store till the following morning. 



The Old and the New Style of 
South Sea Trader. 



THE old style of trader has disappeared from 
the South Pacific, though north of the 
Equator he is still to be found. Thirty years 
ago he lived like a king, and called no man 
master, and, save the then slowly-growing mis- 
sionary interference in his domains, had nothing 
to trouble him. A year or so ago in an English 
paper there appeared a long article on " the 
traders of the South Sea Islands," wherein the 
old style of men were described as being nothing 
short of a band of red-handed cut-throats and 
inhuman savages. Their days were spent in 
shooting indiscriminately all those who crossed 
them, and their nights in the most hideous de- 
bauchery and drunkenness. They were always 

302 



The South Sea Trader. 



" either escaped convicts, or felons who had 
evaded justice by fleeing beyond the bounds of 
civilisation," etc. To those who knew any- 
thing at all of island life as far back as twenty- 
five or thirty years ago, this description was of 
interest alone from one point of view — it displayed 
a remarkable ignorance of the subject. That 
there were in those days some few notorious 
scoundrels and villains of the deepest dye living 
in the South Seas was true enough, but they 
were few, and very far between. 

Nevertheless, some very silly things have 
been written in the past, and will no doubt 
be written in the future, about many of those 
wandering and adventurous, yet honest men, 
who made the Pacific Islands their home from 
the days of Wallis, Cook, and Bligh. Certainly 
during the regime of the terrible Convict System 
of New South Wales some notorious desperadoes 
did escape to and live in the South Seas. They 
were generally of the worst type of convicts, 
men whose hands were against every man's, 
for every man's hand was against them ; 
but they were but few in number when com- 
pared with the legitimate traders who had 
established themselves on hundreds of islands 



304 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

from Pitcairn in the east to the Ladrones in the 
north-west. That many of these men were 
deserters from the great fleet of whaleships which 
from 1798 up to 1850 cruised through both 
Pacifies is also true, but they were not the terrible 
villains it was the fashion to describe them. 
The greater number of them were simply 
traders, and sold coconut oil, pearl-shells, 
and provisions to the whaleships. Some of 
them made fortunes ; others merely made a 
living — but a living free from the hardships 
and miseries of a life at sea ; some there were 
who became thorough natives, and could not be 
distinguished from the wild people among whom 
they lived and died. 

But let me give an idea of the life led by 
both classes of the old-time island adventurers — 
the genuine runaway sailors who had become 
traders, and the escaped convicts from Van 
Dieman's Land or New South Wales. Fifty 
years ago, with these latter the cutting-off of 
ships was a favourite pursuit, and the capture 
of the Globe, of Nantucket, was a notorious 
instance. The Globe lay at anchor in Milli 
Lagoon in the Marshall Islands, when an 
escaped Tasmanian convict and a Portuguese 



The South Sea Trader, 



3°S 



named Antonio Gomal, who were living on 

the island, planned with the natives to capture 

the ship and massacre the crew. This was 

successfully accomplished, but it is satisfactory 

to know that Mr. Gomal at least did not enjoy 

his victory, for the ship's cooper, seizing a 

harpoon, sent it through the " Portingal's " body 

and pinned him to the deck-house. Then, a 

few years later, a band of thirteen convicts living 

on Pleasant Island — an isolated spot in o deg. 

25 min. S., 167 deg. 5 min. E. — and aided by 

two hundred natives, cut-off a ship whose name 

was never ascertained, and murdered every soul 

on board. This ship was well armed, and her 

crew of fifty men made a determined resistance. 

She was then plundered and burnt, and in 

the hilarious festivities that ensued on shore to 

celebrate her capture, two of the white men, 

Goad and D'Arcy, got drunk and shot a chief 

who claimed more than was considered a fair 

share of the booty. In an instant a general fight 

ensued, five of the whites were slaughtered by 

the chief's retinue, and the remaining eight, 

with their native wives, were compelled to leave 

the island. They were never heard of again, 

although the boat in which they left was 

21 



3 o6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



picked up some months later at an island 
a thousand miles to the westward ; in it 
were the remains of three of the poor women. 
So much for one class of the old island adven- 
turer. 

But if there were a few such ruffians scattered 
about the then little-known groups of islands in 
the North and South Pacific, the generality ot 
the old style of traders were a good stamp of 
men ; and much of the success that has attended 
the labours of the missionaries in many parts of 
Micronesia and Polynesia is due to the influence 
these unknown and forgotten men exercised 
over the natives. The earlier missionaries 
on many islands had much to contend with 
in the bitter opposition of many of the white 
traders, who resented their interference in the 
domestic relations of the whites with the natives, 
yet in many instances they were sensible of the 
fact that only for the presence of these adven- 
turous whites Christianity would not easily have 
gained a footing in the Caroline and Marshall 
Islands. 

Still, the idea that all, or nearly all, of the old- 
time traders were men who had broken the laws 
of their country, and had fled from justice, and 



The South Sea Trader. 



3°7 



were of desperate deeds and licentious habits, 
seems to be pretty generally accepted even 
to the present day, and such belief dies hard 
where romantic adventure is concerned. Many 
of them, it is true, had to carry their lives 
in their hands, and take life to save their 
own. One such man perhaps is still alive. 
Fifty years ago, when still a young man of 
twenty-six he was shipwrecked on one of 
the Caroline Islands, and up to 1876 had 
roved about from group to group with his 
numerous children and grandchildren. On 
one occasion, when living on Kusaie Island, 
he found that a plot existed among some of his 
followers — who were all related to him — to 
seize a small trading vessel that lay at anchor 
in one of the harbours of the island. The ring- 
leader of the plot was one of his sons-in-law, a 
native of the Kingsmill Group. This man 
revealed his murderous designs to his wife, 
who, in her turn, communicated them to her 
white father. Arming himself, and accompanied 
by half-a-dozen of his half-caste sons, the old 
trader at once boarded the schooner, told her 
captain of the plan to seize the vessel and kill 
all hands, and said that he would, if the captain 



3 o8 



Wila Life in Southern Seas, 



assisted him, mete out justice. Two boats were 
manned and armed, and went ashore, and the 
trader, calling his followers together in the 
village square, demanded the names of those 
who had planned the seizure of the schooner. 
Nine men were named, among them his son-in- 
law. No attempt was made at denial, and the 
unfortunate wretches, together with six Caroline 
Islanders who had joined in the plot, were 
marched to the beach and summarily shot. 
" If he (the leader) had been one of my 
own sons, instead of only my son-in-law, and 
had been proved guilty, I would have had him 
shot," he said, when speaking of the occurrence. 
And yet this stern old fellow was not only re- 
spected, but loved by his native followers, none 
of whom, not even those who were themselves 
concerned in the plot and were shot for it, 
would have thought of questioning his authority 
even in a matter of life and death. 

Some of those bygone traders lived in great 
style. They generally were sufficiently astute to 
marry a woman of some social rank and posi- 
tion, by which means their own status and 
influence with the natives was sure to be 
increased. Notably this was the case in the 



The South Sea Trader. 309 

older days in the Caroline and Marshall Islands, 
where some two or three white men equalled in 
power and position the highest chiefs in the 
land. On Ponape, in 1820, one such man 
maintained a force of some hundreds of fighting 
men, all of whom were armed with muskets and 
cutlasses. He had originally been the master 
of a trading and whaling vessel, which also did 
a little quiet privateering, during 1815-20. 
Chased away from the East Indies by Dutch 
and English men-of-war, he was sailing east- 
ward to try his luck against the Spaniards on 
the coast of South America when he lost the 
vessel at Ponape in the Western Carolines. 
Out of his crew of thirty men, nearly 
twenty returned to China in a small schooner 
they built from the wreck for the purpose ; 
while he and the remainder accepted the offer 
of the principal chief of the Jakoits district to 
stay on the island and assist him in his warlike 
expeditions. Like the survivors of the mas- 
sacred crew of the English privateer Port-au- 
Prince^ who assisted the warlike chief Finau to 
subjugate the whole of the Tongan Islands, these 
eleven adventurous seamen went to work with 
such zeal that in six months the three districts 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



of Ponape were under the sway of the chief who 
had secured their services. 

As might have been expected, most of these 
men in due time met with violent deaths. Two 
or three of them, however, remained with their 
leader, and like him, although in a lesser degree, 
became rich and powerful, and lived on the fat 
of the land. What their names were is not 
known, but the memory of their doings has not 
yet died away in the W estern Carolines. Their 
leader married the widow of the king of one 
of the subjugated districts of the island, and 
choosing the south end of Ponape for his 
domain, lived in state. Wherever he went he 
was attended by his body-guard, and these he 
subjected to a rigid military discipline. He 
exacted a small tribute of tortoiseshell and 
coconut oil from the people of the district he 
had conquered ; but also bought much of the 
same articles from them for export to China. 
He was eventually lost at sea in a small vessel 
he had himself constructed at Jakoits Harbour, 
and was mourned by a great number of light- 
coloured people of whom he was the progenitor. 

Another old trading identity was Harry 
T , who died a few years ago. He had 



The South Sea Trader. 



formerly served in the English navy, and, in 
addition to imparting much useful knowledge 
to the natives of Pleasant and Ocean Islands, 
taught the particular tribe with whom he lived 
the use of firearms, with the result that Pleasant 
Island, long notorious for the continual blood- 
shed that was always occurring between the 
seven clans or tribes that inhabit the island, 
settled down to comparative peacefulness ; for 
Harry threatened to exterminate the other six 
clans and divide the place among his own 
adherents unless they gave up warfare. A hale, 
stalwart old fellow, by no means devoid of reli- 
gious feeling, he was a type of man-o'-war's man 
of the days of Nelson — always ready to fight, but 
yet brimming over with kindly impulses towards 
whites and natives alike. His dwelling-house 
and store was the general rendezvous not only 
for his own very numerous native and half- 
caste following, but for the few other white men 
trading on the island. He was looked upon 
as a father to the community, and it was a 
matter of pride with him, whenever a ship 
called at the island, to invite the captain 
ashore, and, after treating him royally, point 
to a withered old woman of seventy, and say, 



312 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



" That's my wife, sir. I married her nigh on 
forty years ago, an' she's been with me ever 
since. An' I ain't agoin' to put her away — as 
the custom here is, when a wife gets old." He 
always took great pleasure in showing visitors 
how his sons could box, and would often, old as 
he was, put on the gloves with one of his 
stalwart boys, " to keep him from gettin' 
rusty." Nine sons and seven daughters, most 
of whom were married, and had families, 
made the old man's dwelling a credit to him 
when they were all under the same roof ; and 
the sincere respect and admiration they all 
evinced towards the patriarch might well have 
made him feel proud. 

Another ex-man-o'-war's man, who lived on 
Upolu, in Samoa, had the distinction of pos- 
sessing about the largest family and the hardest 
pair of knuckles of any white man in Polynesia. 
He was much esteemed by the natives for this 
latter fact, as well as for the open contempt 
with which he treated the mandates of the then 
British Consul to appear before him and 
answer charges of assaulting Germans and other 
foreigners when making one of his periodical 
visits to Apia. At last, however, a stray cruiser 



The South Sea Trader. 



from the South American station happened to 
call at Samoa for provisions, and the irate 
Consul took advantage of her presence. A boat 
was sent up to the old man with a request for 
him to come down and appear at the Consular 
Court. Nothing alarmed, he cheerfully com- 
plied, and dressed in white " ducks," and 
attended by half a dozen of his sons and a 
numerous train of natives, he made his appear- 
ance in due time at the court. There were 
present a good number of white residents, some 
of whom were Englishmen, who had come to 
watch the proceedings, and others, who were 
foreigners, to bear witness against the fighting 
proclivities of the old trader. Seated beside 
the Consul were the captain and doctor of 
the man-of-war ; and behind them the Ameri- 
can and German Consuls, both of whom much 
wishe to see the old man punished. 

Several charges of assault and battery were 
then proceeded with, and three Germans and 
two other foreigners related how the old fellow 
had knocked them about " for nothing at all." 

" Nothing at all ! said the trader furiously, 
and, turning an appealing look upon the spec- 
tators, he was about to give his version of the 



3*4 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



affair, when the Consul stopped him and told 
him " to hold his tongue." 

Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet the old 
fellow could not have shown greater surprise. 
For a moment he gazed at the consular repre- 
sentative of Britain's power and might with a 
ludicrous expression of mingled amazement, 
anger, and contempt ; and then stepping up 
to the captain of the warship, he addressed him. 

" Look here, sir. You don't know me, and 
you might think I'm lying. But I'm not. 
Ask any man here — except any of these miser- 
able Dutchmen" (indicating the German Consul- 
General for the Pacific), " or a blatherskitin' 
Yankee like him " (nodding at the American 
official), " or a shuffling old henwife like this 
apology for an Englishman " (pointing his 
finger at the British Consul) — " ask any one 
here, I say, if this fussy ass would have 
dared to tell me to hold my tongue if the 
captain of a man-o'-war wasn't here ? " And 
he turned wrathfully to the amused assemblage 
to corroborate his remarks. 

Trying hard to restrain a smile, the naval 
officer advised the old man not to interrupt, 
and to " treat the court with respect." 



The South Sea Trader. 



315 



" Respect ! " And the clean-shaved, wrinkled 
features of the ex-man-o'-war's man so darkened 
with rage and contempt that the naval officer's 
smile of amusement gave place to a look of 
concern. " Respect a man that will be a party 
to let a lot of blessed furriners insult me — me, 
an English sailor — in the streets of this town, 
and then, because they can't fight, lay a com- 
plaint agin' me in the Council's (Consul's) 
office. Look here, captain, I served with 
Admiral Cochrane in Chili, and I has a proper 
contempt for all furriners. I'm an old man, 
an' an old fool — I gets drunk whenever I comes 
to town, and these Dutchmen insults me by 
sittin' down by 'emselves an' a-lookin' at me — 
me, an Englishman — as if I was a naked 
kanaka. An' whenever they does that I gets 
up an' plugs 'em." 

" But that won't do, B " said the naval 

officer, severely. " You must not take too much 
to drink, or you cannot keep out of trouble." 

"Well, sir, I can't forget I'm an Englishman. 
An' this here Council has no more pluck in 
him than a cat. He's fined me an' fined me 
over and over again for usin' what he says is 
insultin' language to a lot of furriners, who, if 



316 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



it wasn't for the likes o' me, would make every 
Englishman in these here islands ashamed of 
his country." 

For a moment or two the captain of the 
man-of-war wore a troubled look upon his face. 
Then he held up a warning finger to the trader. 

"Now just listen to me, sir, and let me warn 
you against assaulting your foreign fellow- 
residents. And I advise you to respect your 
Consul. If you do this I shall take good care 
that no injustice is done to you." 

The old sailor's face brightened, and with a 
defiant look at the three Consuls he raised his 
hand and saluted. 

" Right you are, sir. If you thinks I've 
done wrong in pluggin' half a dozen miserable 
furriners for insultin' me, I'm willin' to pay my 
fine like a man. But, sir, I believe that a 
dozen fellers like me could lick both watches 
on a German frigate." 

Struggling hard to keep his countenance 
at the old trader's earnest manner, the naval 
officer discussed the matter with the three 
Consuls, and the ex-man-of-war's man was 
fined five dollars. 

Then an American storekeeper, who had 



The South Sea Trader. 



317 



been a much interested and amused spectator 
of the proceedings, advanced to the Consul's 
clerk, and, placing a sovereign upon the table, 
turned to the old trader. 

" Charley, old man, I'll pay your fine. This 
has been most enjoyable." 

But the old order of things in the islands of 
the North and South Pacific is changing rapidly, 
and ere another score of years have passed the 
last one of the old style of traders will have 
disappeared. The new style of trader is merely 
a shopkeeper, pure and not simple, for he buys 
and sells over a counter, and keeps books, and 
carries an umbrella, and only for his surround- 
ings might be taken for a respectable suburban 
grocer in England. Of course, however, if you 
sail away beyond the usual track of the regular 
trading vessel even to-day you will come to 
places where a scanty few of the old style of 
men still exist in their isolation. But these are 
men who have made money in the older times. 
They have pushed out in disgust from the 
civilised and crowded groups of Eastern Poly- 
nesia, where the voice of the tourist is now 
raucous in the land, because the new conditions 
of life became hateful to them, and the incessant 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



competition that assailed them in their business 
lessened their prestige with the natives more and 
more every day. And so, as the new men came 
in and opened " shops " in Fiji, and Tonga, and 
Samoa, and the Hervey Groups, and the sailing 
vessels were replaced by dirty, frowsy-looking 
steamers with loudly dressed supercargoes, 
who came ashore with boxes of " sample 
lines," the old-time traders disappeared one 
by one. 

Westward and northward they sailed to the 
sandy Gilberts and Marshalls, and the distant, 
wooded Carolines, seeking a new resting-place 
among the wild people of those far-off island 
clusters, even as Fenimore Cooper's gaunt old 
trapper set his feet to the westward away from 
the settlements and the rush and clamour and 
greed of civilisation. And in the Carolines and 
Pelews, and on the isolated lagoon islands of 
the Equatorial Pacific, they will linger for 
perhaps another twenty years or so amid their 
half-caste and quarter-caste descendants and their 
brown-skinned native associates, and then the 
new style of trader-supercargo will be upon 
them in his noisy steamer with his umbrella 
and boxes of a lines," and tanned boots and 



The South Sea Trader. 



pot hat, selling everything, from corsets for the 
native girls to window-sashes for the newly- 
erected church. That will be the end of the 
old-time traders, for they can wander no further, 
not even upon the bosom of the wide Pacific, 
and the much-libelled class will exist only in 
the pages of books that will be written after 
they have vanished from the scene. 



Rapa : the Forgotten. 



RAPA is a lonely spot. You can get a fair 
idea of its position by taking a chart of 
the South Pacific and, starting from Brisbane, 
in the colony of Queensland, run a line due 
east for 3,600 miles. For the first 2,400 miles 
of that distance a ship will sight nothing, 
except, perhaps, the breaking surf on the 
dangerous Haymet Rocks ; then, still another 
thousand miles to the east, a lofty, cloud- 
capped, and many-peaked island rises from 
the sea ; this is Rapa. 

Thirty-two years ago there was a line of mail 
steamers running between Sydney and Panama, 
and those who travelled by them were afforded 
a more than passing glimpse of one of the most 
interesting and beautiful islands of the South 

§eas ; for at Rapa the steamers stopped to coal, 

320 



Rapa : the Forgotten. 



321 



and remained there for twenty-four hours or 
more. It lies south of that lovely and fertile 
group of islands called by Matte Brun the 
c< Austral Isles," and by the natives themselves 
Tubuai, the name of the principal island of the 
cluster. (This island, Tubuai, was the first place 
chosen by Fletcher Christian, the leader of the 
Bounty mutiny, for a refuge after he had set 
Bligh adrift, but the natives resisted the occu- 
pation of their country so fiercely that the 
mutineer abandoned the fort he had constructed 
and returned to Tahiti again.) Vancouver was 
the first to discover the group, and sighted 
Rapa on December 22, 1 79 1 , and his vivid 
description of the strange race of savages in- 
habiting the island, and the mingled emotions 
of astonishment, admiration, and fear with 
which they regarded him, his crew, and every- 
thing on board his ship was read with the 
greatest interest by many people in England, 
whose curiosity had been whetted by the dis- 
coveries of Wallis and Cook in the South 
Seas. 

During the few years that the Sydney-Panama 
mail service was continued, Rapa and its people 
were often heard of. Travellers spoke in terms 

22 



322 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



of rapture of the exquisite scenery of the island 
and of the pleasing and engaging manners of 
its light-skinned Malayo-Polynesian inhabitants, 
who had not then been decimated by measles, 
small-pox, and other terrible epidemics ot 
European origin. For a score of years pre- 
viously there had been living on the island 
some few white men, wanderers from the 
Marquesas and Society Groups and other 
islands to the north and east. All these were 
married to native women, and the " remarkable 
beauty of form and feature that characterised 
the pure-blooded natives themselves, seemed if 
possible, to be intensified in the children re- 
sulting from these so-called ' illegitimate ' alli- 
ances." Earning an easy and comfortable living 
by trading with the natives of the adjacent 
islands for pearl shell and pearls, these white 
wanderers and adventurers, so often erroneously 
called " beach-combers " by the average writer, 
passed their lives in peace and comfort, and 
their descendants may to-day be found through- 
out the islands of the South-eastern Pacific. 
At the present time Rapa is but rarely heard 
of, for with the abandonment of the Panama- 
Sydney mail service about the year 1868, it 



Rapa : the Forgotten. 



323 



again sank back into its former state of solitude, 
which, save for the visit of a trading vessel 
from Tahiti had been almost undisturbed since 
the days of Vancouver. Yet, despite its lonely 
situation and its commercial insignificance, Rapa 
has the proud distinction of being a French 
colony, and possesses a Governmental staff of one 
Frenchman who fulfils with ease all the duties 
that devolve on him. Fifteen or sixteen years 
ago the place was much in favour with English 
trading vessels bound to Tahiti, for pigs and 
fowls were cheap and plentiful, and it paid to 
buy them at Rapa and sell at Tahiti. Then the 
French authorities at Tahiti looked grave — 
here was greedy Albion again grabbing profits 
that ought to go into the pockets of French 
citizens ; so the English trade came to an end 
at Rapa, as it has done throughout the Society 
and Marquesas Islands since the tricolour was 
hoisted there. Three or four times a year a 
French or native-owned schooner now visits 
Rapa, bringing mails (for the one-man Govern- 
ment) from Tahiti, and returning with a 
clamorous cargo of fowls and pigs purchased 
from the rapidly diminishing native population, 
which now barely numbers 200 souls, 



324 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

Rising precipitously from the sea, with its 
high, mountainous sides clothed, in parts, with 
rich tropical verdure, the island, even when 
some miles distant, presents a noble and pic- 
turesque appearance, and as the ship draws 
nearer and opens up the various bays and in- 
dentations new beauties are constantly revealed. 
But the eye of the beholder is at once attracted 
to the principal feature, an irregular chain of 
lofty craggy mountains surrounded by clusters 
of low, gracefully rounded hills, from among 
which they start up with extraordinary abrupt- 
ness. Two miles back from Ahurei Bay this 
range suggests that Nature has had a fit of 
violent hysterics, for strangely-shaped, fantastic 
pinnacles and jagged broken spires, denuded of 
the slightest vestige of verdure, send down 
twisted and distorted spurs mantled in glorious 
green, to hold as in an amphitheatre the placid 
waters of Ahurei. Seaward the entrance is 
defended by a stretch of reefs which, dangerous 
in themselves to sailing vessels, yet form a 
perfect sea barrier to the harbour they en- 
compass, access to which is given by a narrow 
and somewhat tortuous channel. But once 
inside the ship is in a lake. 



Rap a : the Forgotten. 325 

From March till November the ocean about 
Rapa is always smooth. Boats and canoes may 
paddle along the very edge of the outer reef, for 
there is seldom any surf, only a gentle heaving 
motion like that which agitates the waters of a 
wide coral lagoon when the tide flows in over 
the coral reef. Why this is so is not known ; 
no other island in either the North or South 
Pacific presents a similar phenomenon. Perhaps 
the enormous depth of water which is obtained 
even within a few fathoms of the shore may 
have something to do with it ; but then Pitcairn 
Island has this feature — depth of water — but 
one seldom sees a surfless day at Pitcairn. 

But placid as the outside ocean may be for 
eight months out of twelve, Ahurei Harbour is 
a treacherous spot. Sudden and savage squalls 
come humming down from the grim moun- 
tain passes and the air is filled with leaves and 
broken twigs. Perhaps a trading vessel is lying 
quietly at anchor, her cable hanging up and 
down in the currentless water right over her 
anchor. Suddenly a squall comes hurtling down 
and the schooner is whirled round and round 
like a humming top, and then brings up to her 
anchor with a terrific jerk. In five minutes the 



326 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



fury of the mountain blast has turned the 
sleeping waters of the harbour into a seething 
mass of angry foam ; in ten all is quiet again, 
and the vessel rides on a lake of glass. 

The arrival of a vessel flying the English flag 
is quite an event to the people of Rapa 
nowadays. They remember the glories of the 
past days, when the 2,000-ton mail boats came 
there and the passengers spent their money on 
fruit and curios right royally. And even if the 
French Governor were standing by they would 
not hesitate to show their delight at meeting 
English people again, for they love the taata 
Peretane (men of Britain), and lament that 
another flag than hers is floating over the 
Residency. And indeed this is pretty well so 
throughout the Society, Austral, and Paumotu 
Islands. " Ah, we would like to be English. 
Our first missionaries were English ; our first 
friends were English ; now we are split and 
divided, and belong to France." 

Long after Vancouver's time Rapa was visited 
by the good and discerning Ellis, whose name 
will always be associated with earlier missionary 
enterprise in the South Pacific. The ship in 
which he was cruising made the island at dawn, 



Rapa : the Forgotten. 



327 



and the captain hove to outside the reef. The 
natives, who then numbered about 800, soon put 
off to the ship, and some lively scenes followed. 
"A gigantic, fierce-looking fellow sprang on 
deck, and seizing a white sailor boy endeavoured 
to spring overboard with jhim, but the lad, 
struggling violently, escaped from his grasp." 
The " fierce-looking fellow," however, was 
determined not to go away without something 
in the shape of a specimen of the strange white- 
skinned race, for he immediately seized a little 
cabin-boy, who was only rescued by the united 
efforts of some sailors who came to his assistance, 
" and the native, finding he could not disengage 
him from their hold, pulled the boy's woollen 
shirt over his head, and was preparing to leap 
out of the ship when he was arrested by the 
sailors." All this must have been comical 
enough, but, Mr. Ellis goes on to relate, " we 
had a large ship-dog chained to his kennel on 
the deck, and although this animal was not only 
exceedingly fearless, but savage, yet the appear- 
ance of the natives seemed to terrify him." For 
without further ado one of them "collared" the 
dog, and lifting him up in his arms was making 
for the bulwarks, when he was brought up with 



328 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



a sharp jerk by finding that the dog's chain was 
fastened to the kennel. Nothing daunted, how- 
ever, the enterprising savage then seized the 
kennel, dog and all, and essayed to take away 
the lot. But the kennel was nailed to the deck, 
whereupon he ceased his efforts, and looked 
around the deck for something more portable. 
This soon appeared in the shape of a kitten, one 
of two brought from Port Jackson ; and the 
dog-bereft native sprang at it like a tiger, 
" caught up the unconscious, and, to him, 
unknown animal, and, with a howl of joy, 
sprang into the sea." The good missionary, 
running to the side of the ship, beheld the dar- 
ing ravisher swimming towards a canoe lying 
half a cable length from the ship. As soon as 
he reached the canoe, holding the cat with both 
hands, and elevating these above his head, he 
exhibited her to his companions with evident 
exultation ; while in every direction the natives 
were seen paddling their canoes towards him to 
gaze upon the strange creature he had brought 
from the vessel." 

Then follows an account of the wrath of the 
captain of the ship who wanted to shoot the cat 
stealer, but was prevented by the calmer-headed 



Rap a : the Forgotten, 



329 



missionary. ' ' Orders were then given to clear 
the ship." But the Rapa people were not 
inclined to clear, and a general scuffle ensued 
between them and the crew of the ship, resulting 
in the former being driven over the side into 
the sea. ... " In the midst of the confusion 
and the retreat of the natives, the dog, which 
had slunk into his kennel, recovered his usual 
boldness, and not only increased the consterna- 
tion by his barking, but severely tore the leg 
of one of the fugitives." (Good old Towser !) 
" The natives, however, still hung about upon 
the shrouds and upon the chains, and the sailors, 
drawing the long knives with which they were 
provided, with menacing gestures, but without 
purposely wounding any one, at last succeeded 
in freeing the ship. Some of them seemed quite 
unconscious of the keenness of a knife, and had 
their hands deeply cut by snatching or grasping 
at the blade." 

In appearance the people of Rapa show vary- 
ing degrees of a copper-coloured complexion ; 
their features are very regular (like those of the 
natives of Easter Island), and their intelligent, 
handsome countenances are rendered the more 
striking by their glossy, black hair, which, in the 



33° 



Wild Life ^ in Southern Seas, 



men, is long and straight, while the women's is 
usually in waves or curls. Their language is a 
variation of Tahitian, and, in the women and 
girl-children, very pleasant to hear ; but the men 
and boys have a practice of speaking in such 
vociferous tones when they are a little excited — 
as by a visit of strangers — that one is glad to 
hear them at a distance. Taking their present 
condition and comparing it with their past, one 
cannot but regretfully conclude that civilisation 
and Christianity has done them much physical 
harm and but little moral good. 



Hino^ the Apostate : A Tale of 
the Mid-Pacific. 



TATI, the chief of Vahitahi, was one of 
the first among v us people of the Thou- 
sand Isles (which you Englishmen call the 
Paumotus x ) who ever beheld a white man. 
When he was but a slender boy, there came 
to Vahitahi from Hao, another island to the 
west, a great canoe. Those that came in this 
canoe told the men of Vahitahi that they had 
seen a great pahi (ship) which had come to 
Hao, and was full of white men, and many of 
the people of Hao had spoken with them, for 
among those on the ship were three men and 
one woman from Tahiti, and the tongue of 

1 The Paumotu, or Dangerous Archipelago, in the South 
Pacific. 

331 



332 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



the Tahiti people was like to that of the 
dwellers on Hao. This ship had spent many 
days at Tahiti, and, when she came to Hao, 
was sailing to the eastward, back to the white 
men's country. 1 

For many months during the time that the 
Hao people remained on Vahitahi, they spoke 
of the strange things told them of the doings 
and customs of the white men, who had 
brought a new God to Tahiti ; and the people 
of Vahitahi, as they listened, wondered and 
wished to see white men and their ships. 
Some there were of us — old men and women — 
who said that in their childhood's days a great 
sailing canoe without an outrigger had passed 
by Vahitahi, and her masts pierced the clouds, 
but no one of the people dared to launch a 
canoe and venture out to look closely, and 
they were pleased to see the ship sail away 
beyond the sea-rim. 

So the years passed on, and the canoe from 
Hao and the tale her people had told had 

1 This was undoubtedly one of the two returning ships 
of a Spanish colonising expedition which had been 
despatched from Peru to Tahiti by the then Viceroy, 
prior to Cook's time. 



Hino, the Apostate. 



333 



become all but forgotten in men's minds. Tati, 
the young chief, was now a great man, for he 
had sailed to Nukutavake and Vairaatea with a 
great fleet of canoes, and had slain ail the grown 
men and old women there and brought back 
many of the young people as slaves. Although 
Vahitahi is but a day's sail from Nukutavake 
if the wind be strong and fair, Tati and his 
canoes, when they returned, were driven hither 
and thither for thirty days by the strong cur- 
rents, till the people grew weak for the want 
of water and food. Once, indeed, did they see 
the tops of the coconut-palms of Vahitahi rising 
from the sea, but at nightfall they had sunk 
again, for the current carried the canoes away 
again to the setting sun. Then, by and by, 
some of those with Tati began to die. 

And in the night there came three great 
sharks that swam to and fro and rubbed their 
heads against the sides of the canoe, and as 
they moved through the silent water — for the 
wind was dead — their bodies shone like fire 
through the blackness of the sea. All night 
long Tati and his men sat waiting for the wind 
and watching the sharks, till at last a young 
priest named Matara came to Tati, and said — 



334 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



" These are the three gods — Tahua, Mau, and 
U'umao. 1 They must be fed." 

" Give them these," said Tati, pointing to 
the bodies of two men who had died of hunger ; 
" of what use is it that we should carry these 
dead men to Vahitahi, so that their wives may 
mourn over them." 

So they took up the bodies and cast them 
over ; but though the sharks came and smelt 
them, and turned them over and over in the 
water, they would not eat them, but turned 
away in anger and swam swiftly round and 
round Tati's canoe. 

Then said Matara, the priest, " See, O Tati, 
thou hast insulted thy three gods — they who 
have given thee victory. Live flesh must they 
have, or it will go ill with us." 

Then Tati took three of the prisoners and 
cast them over one by one, and as they fell the 
sharks each seized one and bit his body in two 
pieces and swallowed it. Then they lay quiet 
beside the canoe. 

" O Tati, give them another," said Matara, 
the priest. 

1 Deified ancestors of the Society and Austral Islanders, 
who, after death, became sharks. 



Hino, the Apostate. 



335 



Tati's men seized a young girl named Lea 
and threw her over. She tried to climb up the 
side of the canoe again, but Tati pressed his 
hand on her head and kept her back. Then 
one of the sharks swam slowly up, and, turning 
over, he took one foot in his jaws and bit it off, 
and then spat it out again. 

u 'Tis a good omen," said Matara, and he 
took hold of the girl by her hair and drew her 
back into the canoe, and the three sharks swam 
away and were seen no more. 

" This," said Matara, the priest, touching the 
girl with his foot, " is the gift of the gods to 
us to keep us from death, else had they eaten 
her." 

And then because of the great hunger that 
made their bellies to lie against their back- 
bones, and because they dared not cast away 
the gift of the gods, they struck a wooden 
dagger into the girl's throat, and cooked and 
ate her, and while they ate the wind came 
from the south and filled the mat sails of the 
canoes, and in the dawn they sailed into the 
lagoon of Vahitahi. So from that day Tati 
made offerings daily to the sharks that swam 
outside in the deep water, by casting them 



33 6 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



one out of every ten fish that were caught, 
and sometimes a man or woman who had 
offended him was seized and bound and thrown 
out to be eaten. 

And so the years passed. Tati had grown 
old now, but was a stronger man than any 
other chief of the Thousand Isles, for he had 
great riches in wives and slaves and canoes, 
but yet was for ever gloomy and morose, for 
not one of his wives had borne him a child, 
and it cut him to the heart to think that he, 
a great chief, should die childless, and be 
shamed. 

One day as he sat in his house, his heart 
filled with heavy thoughts, there passed before 
him a young girl named Hino-riri — the child 
of Riri. She bent her body when she saw 
Tati's eye fall upon her and would have 
passed on, but he called her back and asked 
her name. And as she spoke to him he saw 
that her skin was whiter and her hands and 
feet smaller than those of any other woman 
he had seen, and so he said — 

" None of my wives hath given me a child. 
Art thou asked in marriage by any man ? " 



Hino, the Apostate, 



337 



The girl trembled and could not speak, for 
only that day Matara, the priest, had sent 
gifts to her and asked her to become his wife. 
He already had many wives, but he had seen 
the beauty of Hino and coveted her ; and 
she, although she hated him, yet feared to 
cross his wish, for he was a revengeful man, 
next in greatness to Tati. So, fearing death 
from Matara if she fled away to her home on 
the other side of the island, a lie came to 
her lips. 

" Nay," she said, " no man hath asked me." 

For she knew what was in the mind of 
Tati, and knew that once she was his wife 
Matara would not dare to let it be known 
that he had sought her for himself ; for great 
as was his priestly power and much as the 
people feared him, Tati the chief was greater 
even than he. 

Then Tati, taking the girl's hand in his, tied 
round her wrist a piece of new cinnet to show 
that she was tapu from even the looks of any 
man but himself, and said to her, " Go, tell 
thy people that I, Tati the chief, desire thee for 
my wife." 

So Hino-riri became wife to Tati, who gave a 
23 



33§ 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



great feast ; and Matara the priest, though his 
heart was filled with black hatred against them 
both, offered up sacrifices on the great marae 1 
and said that Tati had made a wise choice and 
that the gods would grant him a son who should 
be both wise in council and terrible in war. 
And scarce a year had passed when Hino-riri 
bore a son ; and the dark face of old Tati 
that had for so many years been full of gloom 
became bright again ; and scarce would he 
let Hino nurse the child, for he was for ever 
fondling it. And to Matara the priest, who had 
invoked the gods to give him a child, did 
he give many presents, and because of the love 
he had for the wife who bore it he turned 
his face away from his seven other wives, whose 
minds became filled with bitter jealousy of 
Hino-riri. 

Then came the time when Hino-riri the 
Beautiful bore another child — a daughter — and 
as the heart of Tati the warrior was eaten up 
with love for the boy, so was the heart of 
Hino the mother filled with love for the girl- 
child, who was named Aimata, " the bright- 
eyed." But yet to the boy, who was named 
1 Temple. 



Hino, the Apostate. 



339 



Tairoa, was Hino ever most tender ; and every 
evening, ere the sun sank beneath the sky-rim, 
would she take them both to the great marae, 
and placing gifts upon the altar, bow her head 
to the ground, and call upon the gods to let her 
children be with her when her hair became 
whitened and her eyes dimmed with old age. 
And then Tati, too, would come to the marae^ 
and pray to the gods to give his son health 
and a strong arm to vanquish the enemies of 
Vahitahi when he, Tati, was dead. So, with 
Tati holding the boy's hand, and Hino with 
the girl pressed to her bosom, they would walk 
back to their house along the beach, and Hino, 
because of the great joy in her heart, would sing 
and laugh, and, holding her little Aimata high 
over her head, would call to Tati, " Is there so 
sweet a babe as mine, O Tati, in all the world?" 
And Tati would laugh and answer, " O vain 
woman, what is thy Aimata to my Tairoa ? See 
his shoulders and broad back ! " and then would 
they laugh together. But little did they know 
that often, when they prayed together at the 
marae, Matara the priest watched them unseen, 
and cursed them both in the bitterness of his 
heart, which was full of hate against them. 



34° Wild Life tn Southern Seas. 

A long time — six seasons — had passed. Tairoa, 
the boy, had become strong and hardy, and 
Aimata, " the bright-eyed," as beautiful as her 
mother. All this time Matara the priest 
watched and waited, seeking for revenge upon 
Hino-riri and her two fair children, and Tati 
the chief who had supplanted him ; but yet 
he was a cunning man and hid his thoughts 
carefully from all men. 

Then one day there came a cry of " E pahi ! 
E pahi ! (A ship ! A ship !) " And the people 
of Vahitahi, running from their houses, beheld 
a great ship which sailed to and fro outside the 
lagoon in sight of the village. In a little while 
a boat came ashore, and in the boat were two 
white men, who were priests of the new lotu 
(Christianity). When all the people were 
assembled before the house of Tati, the two 
white men spoke in the tongue of Tahiti, which 
is like to that of Vahitahi, and said — 

" We have come to thee, O men of Vahitahi, 
to tell thee of the new faith, and of Christ, the 
son of the one True God." Then as the people 
listened and wondered, they told them that the 
men of Tahiti, and Bora-bora and Raiatea, 
and many other islands had cast away their old 



Hino, the Apostate. 



341 



gods and become followers of the god Christ. 
And to prove that they did not lie they said 
to Tati and his people — 

" Come to the ship, and see the gods of 
Tahiti, whose names are Oro and Tane and 
Orotetefa ; come and see how we, and those 
men of Tahiti who are sailors on the ship, 
despise the old gods." 

So Tati, and many of the chiefs, with Matara 
the priest, went into the boat with the two 
missionaries, and when they reached the ship, 
they saw hanging by ropes from the yards of 
the ship many scores of the gods of Tahiti 
and Bora-bora and Raiatea, and in the belly of 
the ship they saw hundreds of the wooden gods 
of many other islands, lying heaped together 
in contempt. And then many Tahitians who 
were in the ship, came to them, and urged them 
to do with the gods of Vahitahi as they of 
Tahiti had done with those of their own 
land. 

" For see," they said, " these are but wood 
and stone and feathers and fit but to spit 
upon ; there is but one true God and He is 
Christ." 

Tati and those with him were filled with 



342 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



terror at seeing these things, and feared to 
remain longer on the ship ; so they went back 
again to talk together. 

For two days the ship lay outside, sailing 
to and fro, while Tati and the missionaries 
talked ; and then because he was filled with 
wonder at the cleverness of the white men and 
at the riches they possessed, he said, " Teach me 
and my people this new religion. If it be 
stronger and better than that of our own gods, 
then shall I and my people hold to it." 

The missionaries were pleased, and gave Tati 
many presents, and then knelt and prayed in 
his house ; but Matara the priest stood out- 
side and mocked them, till Tati bade him 
begone. 

It so happened that Hino had not yet been to 
the ship, for the boy Tairoa lay sick upon his 
mat with a wounded hand, moaning with pain, 
and for many days had she sat by his side 
watching him and bathing it with hot oil, 
for the wound had festered, and the arm was 
swelled to the shoulder. When the white men 
saw her sitting there they asked Tati what ailed 
the boy, and his mother showed them the child's 
hand, and told them that as he had played at 



Hino, the Apostate. 



343 



throwing the spear with his companions, a spear 
which went wide of the mark had entered the 
palm of his hand. The missionaries looked at 
the wound and said that the point of the spear 
yet lay in it, and then they cut deep into 
the flesh and took out a piece of wood. 

' ' What is this ? " said Tati fiercely to Matara 
the priest, and he shook his clenched hand 
angrily at him; " did not the boy's mother say 
that the point of the spear was in the wound, 
and didst not thou say she was foolish, and 
make her bind up the hand tightly and anoint it 
with hot oil ? Away with thee, I say ; these 
white men are cleverer than thou art ! " 

Matara dared not answer Tati, but went 
away hating Hino still more, and planning how 
he would yet be revenged ; but of his black 
looks Tati and she took no heed, for their 
hearts went out to the white men when the 
boy said that already the pain was leaving 
his arm and hand. 

It was for this that Hino pressed her husband 
to take hold of the new faith and let one of the 
strangers remain to teach the people ; and so 
by and by the white missionaries sent ashore a 
Tahitian, who was of the white men's lotu> to 



344 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



teach them the new religion, and bidding Tati 
farewell, they sailed away. 

Very soon the Tahitian, whose name was 
Mauta, began to win the hearts of Hino-riri 
and other women to the new lotu, though the 
men held aloof, and one day he baptized Hi no 
and her two children. But Matara the priest 
and many of the head men talked and muttered 
and said evil would come of it, and tried to 
poison the mind of Tati against Mauta and the 
faith of the new god, Christ. 

Six moons had gone by, and then a great 
storm passed over the island, and nearly every 
coconut tree was torn up by the roots, and the 
people were hard pressed with thirst, for the 
sandy soil of Vahitahi will hold no rain-water. 
Matara said this storm was sent by the gods, 
who were angered at the new faith. So the 
priest and people came to Tati's house and 
told him this, and he was troubled in his mind. 
But Hino said it was idle talk, and besought 
him to pray to the new god ; and old Tati 
said to Matara — 

" Let us wait awhile and see what this new 
priest can do. He is for ever praying." 

They laughed scornfully and said, " Nothing 



Hino, the Apostate. 



345 



but evil will he bring to us," and then went 
away. Then in ten days more the flocks of sea- 
birds called kanapu, that always had nested 
on Vahitahi, and on which the people fed now 
that there were no coconuts, left the island 
and returned no more. 

" 'Tis the new lotu" said the people, and 
many a spear was shaken at the teacher, who 
now lived in Tati's house. 

Then came long, long days of bitter hunger, 
and only one young coconut for each man or 
»voman to drink ; and again the wind blew 
so strongly that no canoe could venture out to 
fish. Seven days it blew, and the seas burst 
over the outer reef, even at low tide, and swept 
across the lagoon into the village, and broke to 
pieces every canoe that lay on the beach. 

" 'Tis the anger of the gods," said Matara ; 
and the people took up his words and repeated, 
"Aye, 'tis the anger of the gods." But Hino 
and two other women who constantly prayed 
with her to the true God, whose son is Jesus 
Christ, remained in the house and refused to 
make sacrifices, as did Tati and the rest of the 
people, upon the altars of the gods of Vahitahi. 

One day Matara spoke to the people openly, 



346 



Wild Life in Southern Seas, 



and said that an offering of a young boy or girl 
must be made to Tahua and Mau, the shark 
gods ; and that the gods would speak to 
him that night, and tell him who the boy or 
girl should be. He, the cruel Matara, meant 
that one of Hino-riri's children should be taken 
and cast to the sharks ; for it was in his mind 
that when both her children were dead she 
would be easy to his desire. 

But that night some young men, who were 
eager to please Matara and see the new religion 
driven out, stole upon a young lad named Ono 
and dragged him away to the reef, bound hand 
and foot, and cast him over to the sharks. 
They saw him sink and drown in the boiling 
surf, and then hurried back and told Matara. 

He was angry when he was told the boy's 
name, and said they had acted foolishly to take 
so much upon themselves, but yet said they 
had tried to please the gods. 

That night the house of Tati was consumed 
by fire, which seized it while the wind was 
strong ; and so quickly did it burn that he 
and his wife and children and slaves had scarce 
time to save their lives. 

"See, O foolish man," said Matara bitterly, 



Hino, the Apostate. 



347 



"thou wilt so anger thy country's gods and 
bring misfortune upon thyself!" 

Then some one called out, " Give us the 
false priest, that we may kill him and eat his 
flesh ! " and then, ere Tati could stay their 
hand, they sprang upon Mauta, the Tahitian 
teacher, and stabbed and cut him with their 
spears. But although the blood poured from 
his mouth, and one arm was gone, he cried 
out as he died — 

" Hold thou fast, O Hino-riri, to the true 
God, and His Son, Jesus Christ, even as do 
I when now my life goes from me. For there 
is but one God, and Christ is His Son." 

That night Matara and other men ate each 
a little portion of Mauta's body, and Hino-riri 
and her children wept, for they loved Mauta, 
who was ever kind to them. And Tati, sitting 
apart from them, was moody and troubled, yet 
was secretly glad that Mauta was dead. 

II 

The famine grew and grew, and soon the 
people began to whisper and say that the two 
other women who, with Hino-riri, had learnt 



348 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the new faith, should be killed and their bodies 
given up to the altar, else would the hunger 
and thirst that ate into their bowels never be 
appeased till death came. So one night they 
came and slew them, and, giving their bodies 
to the sharks, they placed their hearts upon 
the altar of the gods. And lo, the next day 
there came a score of porpoises into the lagoon, 
and flung themselves out of the water on to the 
beach. 

" Ho," said Matara, " Tahua and Mau and 
U'umao are pleased, for, see, they have sent 
these fish for us starving ones to eat. This, O 
people, is because of the two women who were 
offered to them last night. But yet," and his 
eyes burned like red coals as he spoke, " there 
are still some who are false. And until these, 
too, are given up to vengeance, we shall suffer 
hunger and thirst." 

* . • • • 

As the days went by, and the last of the 
porpoise flesh had been divided among the 
hungering people, Tati the chief gave Hino 
his wife hot words, and cursed her for 
bringing misfortune upon the land. This 
was soon told to Matara the priest, who 



IItno y the Apostate, 



349 



rejoiced, for now, while he hated Hino- 
riri, he yet still desired her and thought 
to make her his wife or kill her. Sometimes 
a chief when displeased with his wife would 
cast her off, and this was ever in Matara's 
mind. 

That evening Hino, with her husband's 
curses burning into her bosom, sat on the 
beach, looking out upon the sea. Beside her 
were her two children, who wondered why she 
wept and sought to console her by caresses. 

" Dear ones," she said, drawing their faces to 
her bosom and fondling them in turn, " 'tis 
but a black cloud in thy father's mind that it is 
thy mother who hath brought this strong famine 
on the land ; " and then she wept again. 

Suddenly Matara stood before her. His 
spies had watched Hino-riri and the children 
go to the beach, and the priest had followed. 

" Thou evil woman," he said, " dost weep for 
shame that thou hast made so many to die of 
hunger and thirst ? " 

" Nay," said Hino, drying her tears, for she 
had now no fear of Matara ; " 1 wept because 
thou hast made my husband think such evil 
of me." 



35° 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



Then Matara came close to the woman, and 
took her hand, and said this to her — that in his 
hands lay life or death for herself and children, 
and that Tati had told the people but a little 
while ago that unless she returned to the old 
faith he would kill her or put her away. 

" But," said Matara, and he spoke softly to 
her, " it is in my mind to save thee, for, wicked 
as thou art, I yet love thee, and will take thee 
to my house. Tati's face is turned away from 
thee now for ever ; so hasten away, leave thy 
children with me, and I will take them to Tati ; 
and see that thou runnest quickly along the 
beach to my house, so that no one seeth thee, 
for the people even now cry, ' Give us the blood 
of the sorceress and apostate who has wrought 
such misfortune." 

Then, although the woman trembled, she was 
not afraid. She stepped back a little space and 
said — 

"If it be in Tati's mind to do me this wrong, 
and put me away, then must I die. But go to 
thy house I never shall, thou bad and cruel man, 
whose hands are red with the blood of those thou 
hast slain uselessly." 

So, taking her children's hands in her 



Hino, the Apostate. 



351 



own, she, sobbing heavily, led them away- 
home. 

But that which Matara had told her was true, 
for Tati's heart was indeed poisoned against his 
wife, and he was filled with fear that his heathen 
gods would destroy him utterly unless the new 
faith to which Hino-riri clung was not rooted 
up and cast away. 

When Hino returned, all the people of Vahi- 
tahi were gathered together on the place where 
Tati's great house had stood, and there was 
much clamour of men's and women's voices as 
she and the children drew near ; then fell a 
sudden silence when she came in their midst. 

In the centre of the throng of people was a 
cleared space, covered with mats, and upon this 
sat Tati with his face bent upon his chest and 
his long, grey hair falling down over his naked 
tattooed shoulders, so that it touched the mat. 
No one spoke as Hino-riri and Aimata the 
girl, and Tairoa the boy, walked slowly through 
the people and sat down in the open space near 
the chief. 

Presently there sounded a great hum and mur- 
mur of voices, and Matara, dressed as a priest 
when making a sacrifice, came slowly through 



352 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



the sitting people and passed to a place where 
all could see and hear him. 

First he sat down, and placed his hands, 
with the palms outspread upon the ground, 
and bent his head, and seemed to listen ; and 
all knew that he was waiting for the voice of 
the gods to enter into him. For a long time 
he sat thus ; then his arms began to quiver, 
his fingers to dig into the ground, and a strange, 
groaning sound came from his lips. Suddenly 
he sprang up, and the people saw that his eyes 
were tea tea mata, 1 and bloody froth ran from 
his mouth and fell upon the ground, and the 
people knew that one of the gods had come 
into him. Then he spoke, and his voice was 
like the sharp scream of the great fish eagle. 

" False men of V ahitahi, why have ye 
neglected me, thy god Tahua — I that live in 
the deep sea, and with U'umao and Mau swim 

1 In some of the Ellice and Paumotuan Islands to the 
present day the children have an extraordinary manner of 
amusing themselves by placing a stiff piece of stout grass, or 
such substance, across the open eyes in a perpendicular 
position, and forcing the eyelids back. The appearance 
of the eyes when this is done is horrible and ghastly in the 
extreme. In the Paumotuan Islands this was a common 
practice till forbidden by the missionaries. 



Hino, the Apostate. 



353 



to and fro throughout the night and the day ? 
And thou, O Tati, hast thou forgotten those 
old days on the ocean when the sun was bloody 
red, and the sea hot to the touch of thy hand, 
and thy people lay and hungered and thirsted 
and died ? Who was it that came to thee then 
and gave back part of the live flesh of the woman 
who was cast to them ? Who was it that sent 
the strong, fair wind and brought thee back to 
Vahitahi ? Who was it that gave thee victory 
over the men of Vairaatea and Nukutavake, so 
that in all these motu 1 thou art called Tati the 
Slaughterer ? " 

Then he ceased, and Tati fell upon his face 
and stretched out his hands, and Hino-riri 
clutched her children tightly to her, and her 
eyes ran wild with fear. But again the priest 
began — 

"And why is it, O Tati the chief, that 
famine and thirst and fire and fierce gales have 
come to Vahitahi ? It is because thou hast 
been false to the gods that gave thee riches and 
victory, and hast listened to the new lotu of the 
lying white men ! Who was it, when thy wife 
Hino-riri and two other women worshipped the 

1 Islands, or country. 
24 



354 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



new god, were yet pitiful to the cry of hunger 
of the people, and sent thee a score of por- 
poises ? 'Twas I, Tahua, and U'umao, and 
Mau, my brothers ! In the night we chased 
them from the deep sea across the lagoon on 
to the beach, so that the people might eat ! 
And so, lest this land be for ever smitten with 
all manner of evil things, cast out this new 
religion and make an offering. . . . Give me 
thy daughter Aim at a." 

Then Hino-riri, springing to her feet, flung 
herself on the ground before Matara, and cried 
out in her agony, " Let me die instead. Take 
my life, Matara, but let this little child 
live." 

Tati said naught ; he still lay upon the mat 
with his face hidden ; but when he heard 
Matara call out the name of Aimata he rose, 
and, taking the boy Tairoa by the hand, led 
him quickly away. And then Matara too 
turned away from the woman at his feet, and 
was gone. 

Four men stepped out, and, while two of 
them held Hino-riri, the others seized the 
child, and took her away with them to the altar 
of Tahua. There they killed her, and then 



Hwo, the Apostate, 



355 



threw her tender body to the hungry sharks 
that waited outside the reef. 



Ill 

Now it is strange, but true, that that 
night, as Hino-riri, the mother, lay sobbing 
to herself upon the beach alone — for Tati had 
taken her boy away for the night — the sea- 
birds that had fled from their breeding-places 
on Vahitahi came back in thousands, and rilled 
the air with their clamour, and the people killed 
them with sticks till their arms were tired. And 
as she lay there on the sand, there passed by her 
women carrying heavy strings of dead birds. 
They saw her and mocked her — for all knew 
that Tati had cast her off — and one threw her a 
bird and said — 

"Eat, thou apostate. This is the gift of 
Tahua to thee — for thy child that has gone 
into his belly/ ' 

She answered them not, but kneeling upon 
the sand, prayed to Christ, the Son of the new 
God she worshipped, to take her to Him and 
her child Aimata. 



356 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



In the dawn, when she was chill and stiff 
from the dews of the night, some one touched 
her, and she awoke. It was Matara. 

" Come to my house," he said. 

She made him no answer, but rising to her 
feet staggered away from him. When she 
came to the village she asked of a man, 
" Where is Tati ? " 

He showed her the house where Tati lay 
sleeping with her son. She went in and 
touched the chief on his arm. 

" Let me lie beside my boy for a little while ; 
my heart is dead and cold." 

" Wilt thou give up thy false Christ God ? " 
said her husband. 

" Nay," she answered, " that I cannot do 
I have prayed to Him in the night, and He 
hath made me strong ; but, O Tati, let me 
have my child to comfort me. Let me but 
press his face to my bosom, which is aching 
for love of him." 

" Go," he said, and he pushed her outside 
the house. 

For many days no one saw her. She went 
away to the far north point of the island, 
and lived there in a little, empty house, alone. 



Hmo, the Apostate, 



357 



Sometimes the people would see her wandering 
to and fro on the beaches at night-time, but 
none spoke to her. Once, indeed, did Matara 
come to her, but she fled and hid herself from 
him. 

One night, as the boy Tairoa lay sleeping 
beside his father, she crept up to him, and 
took him up quickly but softly in her arms, 
and no one awoke, though many besides Tati 
slept in the house, for since Aimata had been 
slain Tati loved his son more than ever, and 
always held him in his arms when he slept ; and 
so she feared greatly to awaken the boy's father. 

Out to the beach she fled, towards the reef. 
The tide was low, and the water shallow. The 
splashing of her feet awoke the boy, who asked 
whither she was taking him. 

" But a little way, my son, my heart," she 
whispered ; and the boy was content, for he was 
pleased to hear his mother's voice. There were 
some women night-fishing on a part of the reef 
within hearing, and these said afterward that 
they heard a woman's laughter many times, and 
saw a figure of a woman carrying something in 
her arms going out towards the reef. 

" 'Tis the laugh of Hino-riri," said one ; 



358 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



" only yesterday did Nua, my daughter, meet 
her on the beach laughing and talking to 
herself." 

Hino-riri walked on until she came to a 
place where many great paua 1 lay hidden 
among the coral, with their gaping mouths 

1 The paua, or clam, of Polynesia are found in great 
quantities among the Pacific Islands, and the numerous 
species vary greatly in size, colour, and shape. That kind 
known to the Paumotuan Islanders as the paua toka, or 
stone clam, is familiar to the North Australian coast, where, 
upon the Barrier Reef, it attains an enormous size. The 
shell is formed of two great valves connected by hinged 
teeth and muscles of extraordinary power. Lying together, 
embedded in the ever-growing coral, the paua, with wide- 
gaping mouth, waits for the food swept into it by the current 
which carries over it continuously all sorts of forms of the 
lower order of marine life. The natives, when collecting 
them for food, carry in one hand a sharp-pointed piece of 
iron, or a pointed stake of wood hardened by fire. This is 
thrust into the open jaws, which at once close and seize 
the weapon ; then, after a series of sharp jerks and tugs, 
the byssus by which the clam is attached to the coral tears 
out from its hold. But only with small paua can this be 
done — the strength of two men could not detach one of 
the great ones (Tridacna gigas) from its bed, for, as the 
years go by, the base of the clam settles down into the 
coral, and the outside of its huge, fluted shell becomes 
part and parcel of the rock itself. Walking amongst a bed 
of paua is exceedingly dangerous. 



Hwo 9 the Apostate. 



359 



wide open. The water was but two spans 
in depth, and the lips of some of the faua 
were level with the surface. 

For a while she looked closely about her, till 
she came to one that was of great size, the 
mouth of which was hidden by weed. Then 
she stopped. 

The boy had become sleepy again, but his 
mother's voice roused him. 

"Stand there, and let me rest awhile," she 
said, and lifting the boy quickly she placed his 
feet into the mouth of the great paua. It 
shut together, and held him fast. 

Then those women who were fishing heard a 
dreadful cry of agony through the night and saw 
a dim figure fleeing along the reef whence the 
sound came. They were frightened, and went 
back to the shore as quickly as they could. 
When they reached the village Tati was mad 
with rage and fear, for Tairoa was gone from 
his side. 

All the next morning the people searched for 
the boy and Hino-riri, Tati thinking she had 
hidden him in a desolate part of the island. 

The women who had heard and seen her in 
the night had then told no one of it. They 



3 6 ° 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



thought that she had had the boy with her, and 
knew that Tati would kill them for not taking 
him away from her. 

When the sun was high, and all the people 
were gathered together on the north end of the 
island, searching for Hino-riri and the boy in 
a low, dense scrub, they saw her walking towards 
them along the beach. 

Her feet were cut and bleeding, and she was 
weak, and her thin, frail form swayed to and fro 
as she walked. As she drew near, the people 
rushed out to meet her and gathered round her. 

" What seek ye, O people ? " she said, and 
she leant her hand on a woman's shoulder. 
" Art thou, O Tati, seeking for thy son 
Tairoa, even as I have sought for my daughter 
Aimata ? Come then, with me, and I shall show 
thee that I, too, have made sacrifice to the gods 
of this land, and cast away the Christ God — 
He who could not save my child Aimata/' 

The tide had risen and fallen since the night, 
and Hino-riri, laughing and talking to herself 
and flinging her arms widely apart, led the 
people out over the reef till she came to where 
the paua lay. Then she stopped, and pointing 
to a great clam whose lips were closed, she spoke. 



Hino, the Apostate, 



361 



" See Tati, thou cruel father, this is the place 
where I made sacrifice to Tahua the Shark with 
thy son, even as thou didst with Aimata, my 
daughter. Look thou, and see if I lie." 

They looked, and lo ! between the lips of the 
great shell stood up two white leg-bones, half a 
span high, and covered with torn, dull red 
flesh. 

" Dost thou believe me now p " she said 
mockingly to her husband. " At the time 
when the tide was low I stood thy boy up 
in the jaws of the paua — when the tide rose 
-Tahua and U'umao and Mau, the shark gods, 
came and accepted the sacrifice." 

Then Tati seized her by the hair and thrust 
his knife into her bosom, and Hino-riri died 
there out upon the reef. 



In the 



ALL night long a white mantle of fog had 
lain upon the Downs, and now as the 
belated dawn begins to break a faint breeze » 
stirs and lifts the heavy pall. Close in shore 
the dim, ghostly shape of a collier brig comes 
slowly out, and the hoarse, warning note of the 
Gull Light foghorn is answered by the muffled 
scream of a steamer's siren somewhere near the 
South Sand Head. With the cold, grey morn- 
ing light there falls a misty, drizzling rain ; 
dark figures move about the wet shingle, and 
one by one the fishing-boats are launched and 
row out seaward, and ere the last to leave is 
a cable length away, down comes the sweeping 
fog once more and blots them all from view, 
till naught is visible but the black outlines of 



In the Morning. 



3 6 3 



the luggers hauled high up on the verge of the 
dismal and deserted parade. 

" Oh, how wet and cold and gloomy it is in 
England in the morning, ,, says a childish voice 
beside me. " Will the sun never come out and 
show us the sea and sky and sailing ships 
again r 

And so she turns away from the fog-blurred 
window ; and we sit beside the fire, look into 
the glowing coals, and think of the morning 
in the far South Seas. 

. . • • • 

A dome of fire, blood-red, springs upward 
from the sleeping sea, and the day has come. 
As the first swift streaks of light shoot through 
the heavy mountain mists hovering above the 
high, densely wooded forest slopes back from 
the beach, the waking wood-pigeons roosting 
in the masaoi trees sound out their morning 
note, answered by the sharp cries of a flock of 
green and gold paroquets as they sweep shore- 
ward from the darkened valleys to the sunshine 
of the coast ; a swarm of sooty terns follow, 
with lazily flapping wing, to seek their food 
upon the sea. A conch-shell booms, and the 
native village awakes to life. With sleepy 



364 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 

eyes and black, glossy hair falling about their 
shoulders of bronze, half-nude male and female 
figures come forth from every house of thatch 
and walk slowly down towards the reef for 
their morning bathe. As they pass the trader's 
dwelling — a rambling, untidy-looking place, 
with doors and windows opened wide — the 
papalagi stands upon his verandah, smoking 
his morning pipe and waiting for his coffee. 
They all, men and women, give him kindly 
greeting or exchange some merry jest. Behind 
their elders, in noisy groups of eight or ten, 
come the village children, big-eyed laughter- 
loving boys and girls together, pushing and 
jostling against each other's all but naked red- 
brown figures ; and then as their voices die 
away in the distance, silence falls again. Away 
out beyond the reef the long ocean swell is 
rippling to the morning breeze ; flocks of terns 
and snow-white gulls fly to and fro, watching 
with eager, beady eyes for the first signs of the 
shoals of tiny fish on which they prey from 
dawn till dark. Back from the village the grey 
pigeons and gay-hued manutagi (the ringdove 
of Polynesia) hush their crooning notes as they 
see beneath them the figures of men carrying 



In the Morning. 



365 



long slender-barrelled guns. Every now and 
then a shot awakes the echoes of the mountain 
caves, and a pigeon falls heavily from his perch 
upon some fruit-laden masdoi or tamanu tree ; 
a frightened, shrieking cry from some paroquets, 
and then the quiet forest aisles are hushed 
again. Far up the mountain-side a wild boar 
hurries to his lair beneath the buttressed bole 
of a mighty tree, and listens. He, too, has 
heard the gunshots, and knows that danger lies 
down there upon the cool forest flats, where the 
thick carpet of dew-soaked leaves gives forth no 
sound to the naked footstep of man. 

The white trader finishes his coffee, and, 
stepping down from his verandah, opens his 
store for the day's business. Then the bathers 
come back, the men stopping at the store to 
lounge about and smoke cigarettes awhile ; the 
women, wringing out their wettened tresses as 
they pass, go to their homes to prepare the 
morning meal of fish and taro. As the sun 
rises higher and the dew-soaked palm and 
breadfruit trees begin to sway and rustle to the 
trade wind, smoke ascends from behind every 
thatch-covered dwelling, as the women kindle 
fires to make their umu (oven) of hot stones, 



3 66 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



for there are flying-fish or crayfish that have 
been caught in the night to be cooked. But as 
the women tend the ovens and the men sit 
about the trader's verandah, a trouserless native 
in a white shirt and waist-cloth of navy-blue 
print appears in the village square with a 
mallet in his hand and strikes it vigorously 
against the sides of a wooden cylinder placed 
without the white-walled church of coral stone. 
As the loud, resonant notes vibrate through the 
morning air the women leave their cooking, and 
hastening inside their houses don their print 
gowns over their girdles of grass, and take up 
their Bibles, and the men run from the trader's 
dwelling to their own to put on shirts and hats, 
to follow their women-kind to morning service. 
For the wooden logo, or drum, is the local church 
bell, and 'twould be a dire offence for any one 
not sick to fail to be present. The trader, too, 
for propriety's sake, grumblingly closes his 
store door until the service, which is short 
enough, is finished. Then the people, disrobing 
themselves to their girdles of grass as they file 
out of the church, return to their houses and 
sit cross-legged to their meal. 

And now the sun comes out with glowing 



In the Morning. 



367 



heat, even though the plumed palms are sway- 
ing and bending to the full day force of the 
brave south-east trade, and the wide expanse 
of ocean blue is flecked with chips of white. 
Wandering, sun-loving pigs stretch themselves 
upon the sandy space before the trader's house, 
and lie there contentedly, head to wind, grunting 
out the satisfaction they feel from the hot, baking 
sand. Here and there along the margin of the 
yellow beach, white and blue cranes stand in 
solemn gravity to watch for straggling garfish 
brought shoreward by the incoming tide, which 
is swirling in deep-drawn eddies through the 
reef-bound passage a mile away. 

Now from the village comes the sound of 
voices, and parties of men appear with spears 
and fishing-tackle in their hands ; canoes are 
launched, and with wild cries the crews shoot 
their slender craft swiftly over the breaking 
surf into the rolling sea beyond. Along the 
winding line of inshore reef that trends north- 
ward from the little bay, walk women and girls, 
nude to their hips, and wearing over their eyes 
sunshades of green coconut-leaf. Each one 
carries a basket slung upon her back by a band 
of hibiscus bark, and in her hand a small scoop- 



3 68 



Wild Life in Southern Seas. 



net and a three-pronged spear. Some stoop to 
pick up shellfish ; others gather round the 
edges of shallow pools amid the coral rock, and, 
joining their nets together, sweep it for the 
silvery-scaled kanae and atuli — the sprats and 
herrings of the South Seas ; and then, with 
a deft movement of their bronze-hued right 
arms over their left shoulders, drop the gleam- 
ing fish into the baskets on their backs. 

Away beyond the sound of the voices of the 
children who are sometimes shouting, some- 
times droning their lessons to the native teacher 
and his wife, lie the great taro swamps, and 
thither walk in groups of twos and threes the 
older women. They go to labour in the 
watery fields, and take their way along one of 
the many shaded paths that lead forestward to 
the scene of their toil. Unlike the women who 
sing and laugh as they fish waist-deep amid the 
hissing, bubbling surf, these walk on in silence 
over the leaf-strewn track till they reach the 
shadeless swamps wherein the broad green leaves 
of the taro plants hang drooping in the tropic sun. 
There, as they sit to talk and smoke awhile, 
they hear the tap, tap, tap of the lappa mallets 



In the Morning. 



3 6 9 



sounding from the village a mile away as clearly 
as if those who wielded them were within a 
hundred yards. And then one, calling to the 
others to follow, steps into the hot and stagnant 
swamp and begins to work. 

For it is the fate of the Polynesian woman to 
work when she is old — unless she be the wife 
or sister or daughter of a chief — one whose 
hands must not be soiled nor skin darkened by 
the hard labour of the taro field — to work, 
always work. And her lord and master thinks 
it good. He works no more than he can help. 
He enjoys life according to his simple lights. 
" E mate tatou, e mate fopo" he says (" When 
we die we remain dead "). He dare not say 
this to the missionary, lest he should be re- 
proved. But he thinks it all the same — and 
maybe there is some wisdom in his philosophy. 



2 5 



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